Jews of Ethiopia have long believed they were descended from King Solomon through the mysterious queen of Sheba . In I Kings , chapter 10, she is said to have traveled to Jerusalem to experience for herself the riches and wisdom of King Solomon, son of David and greatest of the Hebrew kings. If the event ever took place, it probably happened between 965 and 931 BC. She brought a caravan full of lavish gifts and seemed to be quite taken with the king himself. The Queen of Sheba said to the king : “The report I heard in my own country about your achievements and your wisdom is true. But I did not believe these things until I came and saw with my own eyes. Indeed, not even half was told me; in wisdom and wealth you have far exceeded the report I heard. How happy your people must be! How happy your officials, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom! Praise be to the Lord your God, who has delighted in you and placed you on the throne of Israel. Because of the Lord’s eternal love for Israel, he has made you king to maintain justice and righteousness.” And she gave the king 120 talents of gold, large quantities of spices, and precious stones. Never again were so many spices brought in as those the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.
17th-century AD painting of the Queen of Sheba from a church in Lalibela, Ethiopia. National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa ( CC BY-SA 2.0 )
Who Was Sheba
Here is the problem. No one really knows who the queen of Sheba was or where she came from. There are two traditions: First: According to Arab and Islamic sources, the queen of Sheba was called Bilquis, and ruled over a nation on the southern Arabian Peninsula. It would have been located in what is now Yemen. Second: Ethiopian records have long claimed that she was called Makeda, and ruled over an empire based in northern Ethiopia.
There may be confirmation that one is dealing with history and not unsubstantiated legend, since archaeological evidence indicates that at the same time the mysterious monarch was said to have lived, Ethiopia and Yemen were ruled by a single dynasty for some four centuries. In other words, both traditions might be right. The queen of Sheba might have ruled over the entire empire of Ethiopia and Yemen.
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Jim Willis is author of nine books on religion and spirituality, he has been an ordained minister for over forty years while working part-time as a carpenter, the host of his own drive-time radio show, an arts council director and adjunct college professor in the fields of World Religions and Instrumental Music. He is author of Censoring God: The History of the Lost Books (and other Excluded Scriptures)
Top Image : Solomon and The Queen of Sheba, Giovanni De Min (19th Century) ( Public Domain )
By Jim Willis
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