2 Chronicles 9

The queen of Sheba heard how famous Solomon was, so she came to Jerusalem to test him with hard questions. She brought a very large group with her, along with camels loaded with spices, a great deal of gold, and precious stones. When she reached Solomon, she talked with him about everything on her mind.

1And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon, she came to prove Solomon with hard questions at Jerusalem, with a very great company, and camels that bare spices, and gold in abundance, and precious stones: and when she was come to Solomon, she communed with him of all that was in her heart.

NoteSheba was a wealthy kingdom in southwest Arabia, in the area of modern Yemen, which grew rich controlling the overland trade in incense and spices, the journey to Jerusalem was roughly 1,400 miles by camel. "Prove him with hard questions" does not mean an examination: the Hebrew word means riddles or puzzles, and trading them was a recognized contest of wits between rulers and their courts.

2Solomon answered all her questions. Nothing was too hard for him to explain to her.

2And Solomon told her all her questions: and there was nothing hid from Solomon which he told her not.

3The queen of Sheba saw how wise Solomon was. She also saw the palace he had built,

3And when the queen of Sheba had seen the wisdom of Solomon, and the house that he had built,

NoteThe Hebrew word for "house" covers both a temple and a palace; here, as verse 4's separate mention of the LORD's house shows, it means Solomon's own palace complex.

4the food on his table, where his officials sat, how his servants waited on him and how they were dressed, his cupbearers and their clothing, and the stairway he used to go up to the LORD's temple. It left her breathless.

4And the meat of his table, and the sitting of his servants, and the attendance of his ministers, and their apparel; his cupbearers also, and their apparel; and his ascent by which he went up into the house of the LORD; there was no more spirit in her.

NoteA cupbearer was a high court official, not a waiter: he served the king's wine and tasted it first, which put him among the most trusted men in the kingdom. The last item in the list is genuinely uncertain in Hebrew, the same consonants can be read as "his ascent" (the stairway or processional way by which he went up to the temple, as the King James has it) or "his burnt offerings" (the sacrifices he presented there, as many modern translations have it).

5She said to the king, "The report I heard in my own country about what you have done and how wise you are is true.

5And she said to the king, It was a true report which I heard in mine own land of thine acts, and of thy wisdom:

6But I did not believe what they said until I came and saw it with my own eyes. In fact, I was not told even half of how great your wisdom is. You are far beyond the report I heard.

6Howbeit I believed not their words, until I came, and mine eyes had seen it: and, behold, the one half of the greatness of thy wisdom was not told me: for thou exceedest the fame that I heard.

7How fortunate your men are, and how fortunate these servants of yours are. They stand in front of you all the time and listen to your wisdom.

7Happy are thy men, and happy are these thy servants, which stand continually before thee, and hear thy wisdom.

8Praise the LORD your God, who was pleased with you and set you on his throne to be king for the LORD your God. Because your God loved Israel and meant to make them secure forever, he made you king over them, to rule fairly and do what is right."

8Blessed be the LORD thy God, which delighted in thee to set thee on his throne, to be king for the LORD thy God: because thy God loved Israel, to establish them for ever, therefore made he thee king over them, to do judgment and justice.

NoteChronicles regularly describes the king of Israel as sitting on the LORD's own throne rather than his own, the language casts the human king as a deputy holding a throne that belongs to God. "Judgment and justice" is a fixed Hebrew pair meaning something like fair legal decisions and right dealing generally.

9She gave the king 120 talents of gold, a huge amount of spices, and precious stones. There was never spice like the spice the queen of Sheba gave King Solomon.

9And she gave the king an hundred and twenty talents of gold, and of spices great abundance, and precious stones: neither was there any such spice as the queen of Sheba gave king Solomon.

NoteA talent was a weight, not a coin, roughly 75 pounds (34 kg). Her gift of 120 talents was therefore about four tons of gold.

10Huram's servants and Solomon's servants, who brought gold from Ophir, also brought algum wood and precious stones.

10And the servants also of Huram, and the servants of Solomon, which brought gold from Ophir, brought algum trees and precious stones.

NoteHuram (spelled Hiram in Kings) was the king of Tyre, the Phoenician port city up the coast; his sailors were the experienced seamen of the region, and Solomon's ventures depended on them. Ophir was a distant source of exceptionally fine gold (its location is unknown, with Arabia, East Africa and India all suggested) and its name became a byword for gold of the best quality. What kind of tree "algum" was is also uncertain; sandalwood and a species of juniper are the usual guesses.

11The king used the algum wood to make steps for the LORD's temple and for the king's palace, and to make harps and other stringed instruments for the singers. Nothing like them had ever been seen before in the land of Judah.

11And the king made of the algum trees terraces to the house of the LORD, and to the king’s palace, and harps and psalteries for singers: and there were none such seen before in the land of Judah.

NoteThe Hebrew word rendered "terraces" or "steps" occurs only here and in the parallel passage, and its meaning is not known; suggestions include stairs, walkways, supports and railings. "Psalteries" is the King James word for a plucked stringed instrument, roughly a lyre or small harp.

12King Solomon gave the queen of Sheba everything she wanted, whatever she asked for, over and above what she had brought to the king. Then she and her servants went back to her own country.

12And king Solomon gave to the queen of Sheba all her desire, whatsoever she asked, beside that which she had brought unto the king. So she turned, and went away to her own land, she and her servants.

13The gold that came to Solomon in a single year weighed 666 talents.

13Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred and threescore and six talents of gold;

Note666 talents is about 25 tons of gold. Round or striking numbers of this kind were commonly used to convey scale.

14That did not count what the traveling traders and merchants brought in. All the kings of Arabia and the governors of the land also brought gold and silver to Solomon.

14Beside that which chapmen and merchants brought. And all the kings of Arabia and governors of the country brought gold and silver to Solomon.

Note"Chapmen" is old English for traveling traders or peddlers, the word survives now only in the surname Chapman. The point is that this figure counted only direct payments to the crown, on top of ordinary trade revenue.

15King Solomon made 200 large shields of hammered gold. Each of these shields used 600 shekels of hammered gold.

15And king Solomon made two hundred targets of beaten gold: six hundred shekels of beaten gold went to one target.

Note"Target" is the King James word for a large shield, the kind that covers most of the body, as against the smaller shield of the next verse. A shekel was a weight of about two-fifths of an ounce (11.5 grams), so 600 shekels is roughly 15 pounds (7 kg) of gold per shield. These were ceremonial, for display and parade, not for battle.

16He also made 300 smaller shields of hammered gold. Each of these used 300 shekels of gold. The king put them in the building called the House of the Forest of Lebanon.

16And three hundred shields made he of beaten gold: three hundred shekels of gold went to one shield. And the king put them in the house of the forest of Lebanon.

NoteThe House of the Forest of Lebanon was a great hall in Solomon's palace complex, named for its rows of cedar pillars, which made the interior look like a forest of trees. It served as an armory and treasury as well as a state hall.

17The king also made a great throne of ivory and covered it with pure gold.

17Moreover the king made a great throne of ivory, and overlaid it with pure gold.

18The throne had six steps, and a gold footstool was attached to it. There were armrests on both sides of the seat, with a lion standing beside each armrest.

18And there were six steps to the throne, with a footstool of gold, which were fastened to the throne, and stays on each side of the sitting place, and two lions standing by the stays:

Note"Stays" is the King James word for armrests. Lions were the standard emblem of royal power throughout the ancient Near East, and thrones flanked by animal figures are known from the region's art. The Hebrew here reads "a footstool of gold"; the parallel account in 1 Kings 10:19 instead describes a rounded top to the throne.

19Twelve lions stood on the six steps, one at each end of every step. Nothing like it had ever been made for any kingdom.

19And twelve lions stood there on the one side and on the other upon the six steps. There was not the like made in any kingdom.

20All of King Solomon's drinking cups were gold, and every item in the House of the Forest of Lebanon was pure gold. None of it was silver, because in Solomon's day silver was not considered worth much.

20And all the drinking vessels of king Solomon were of gold, and all the vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon were of pure gold: none were of silver; it was not any thing accounted of in the days of Solomon.

21The king's ships went to Tarshish with Huram's servants. Once every three years the ships of Tarshish came back carrying gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks.

21For the king’s ships went to Tarshish with the servants of Huram: every three years once came the ships of Tarshish bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks.

NoteTarshish was a distant port reached by sea, most often identified with Tartessus in southern Spain, though Sardinia and other sites are proposed; "ships of Tarshish" may not mean ships bound there at all, but a class of large ocean-going vessel, the way one might say "an ocean liner." The word translated "peacocks" is of uncertain meaning (baboons is the other common suggestion) and "apes" and "ivory" likewise point to a trade route reaching Africa or India.

22King Solomon was greater than every other king on earth in riches and in wisdom.

22And king Solomon passed all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom.

23All the kings of the earth wanted to meet Solomon and hear the wisdom God had put in his heart.

23And all the kings of the earth sought the presence of Solomon, to hear his wisdom, that God had put in his heart.

24Each of them brought his own gift: things made of silver and gold, clothing, weapons, spices, horses, and mules. This happened year after year, a set amount each year.

24And they brought every man his present, vessels of silver, and vessels of gold, and raiment, harness, and spices, horses, and mules, a rate year by year.

Note"Harness" in 1611 English meant armor and weapons, not straps for a horse. "A rate year by year" means a fixed annual quota: this describes regular tribute from subject or allied rulers, not occasional gifts.

25Solomon had 4,000 stalls for horses and chariots, and 12,000 horsemen. He stationed them in the chariot cities and with himself in Jerusalem.

25And Solomon had four thousand stalls for horses and chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen; whom he bestowed in the chariot cities, and with the king at Jerusalem.

NoteThe parallel verse at 1 Kings 4:26 gives 40,000 stalls rather than 4,000, a difference that most likely arose in copying. The Hebrew word translated "horsemen" can mean either the riders or the horses themselves. The chariot cities were fortified garrison towns where chariot forces were stationed away from the capital; Megiddo, Hazor and Gezer are named elsewhere as Solomon's fortresses.

26He ruled over all the kings from the Euphrates River to the land of the Philistines, and as far as the border of Egypt.

26And he reigned over all the kings from the river even unto the land of the Philistines, and to the border of Egypt.

Note"The river," used on its own in Hebrew, always means the Euphrates, in what is now Iraq and Syria: it marks the far northeastern limit of the territory claimed here. The Philistines were a people settled in five cities on the southern coastal plain, long-standing rivals of Israel, whose land lay between Judah and the sea.

27The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and he made cedar wood as plentiful as the sycamore trees that grow in the western foothills.

27And the king made silver in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar trees made he as the sycomore trees that are in the low plains in abundance.

NoteThe sycomore here is the sycomore fig, a common Middle Eastern tree whose wood was cheap and ordinary, the comparison is to something plentiful and unremarkable, and the tree is not the same as the modern sycamore or plane. Cedar, by contrast, had to be shipped from Lebanon at great expense. The "low plains" are the Shephelah, the belt of low hills between the central highlands and the coast.

28Horses were brought to Solomon from Egypt and from all the other lands.

28And they brought unto Solomon horses out of Egypt, and out of all lands.

NoteEgypt was known for fine horses and chariot teams. In the parallel passage at 1 Kings 10:28 the Hebrew names a second source alongside Egypt, usually read as Kue in Cilicia (southern Turkey), another famous horse-breeding region; Chronicles here has the more general "all lands."

29The rest of what Solomon did, from beginning to end, is written in the records of Nathan the prophet, in the prophecy of Ahijah from Shiloh, and in the visions of Iddo the seer about Jeroboam son of Nebat.

29Now the rest of the acts of Solomon, first and last, are they not written in the book of Nathan the prophet, and in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and in the visions of Iddo the seer against Jeroboam the son of Nebat?

NoteA "seer" is an older Hebrew term for a prophet, from the idea of seeing visions. The three writings named here are lost: they were sources the Chronicler drew on, not books of the Bible. Nathan was the prophet at David's court; Ahijah, from the sanctuary town of Shiloh, told Jeroboam son of Nebat that he would rule ten of the tribes; Jeroboam was a royal official who led the northern tribes' break from Solomon's son, the story told in the next chapter. The King James "against Jeroboam" translates a Hebrew preposition that can equally mean simply "concerning."

30Solomon ruled in Jerusalem over all Israel for forty years.

30And Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel forty years.

31Then Solomon died and was buried in the City of David, the city of his father. His son Rehoboam became king in his place.

31And Solomon slept with his fathers, and he was buried in the city of David his father: and Rehoboam his son reigned in his stead.

Note"Slept with his fathers" is a standard Hebrew idiom for dying, carrying the sense of a peaceful death and burial in the ancestral tomb, as against being killed or dying in disgrace. The City of David is the oldest part of Jerusalem, the fortified ridge David captured from the Jebusites, where the kings of Judah were buried.