QUEEN OF SHEBA.
The Queen of Sheba is a model to all inquirers. It was not enough for her to have heard of the fame of Solomon and to have admired him at a distance as a unique genius. Her admiration excited her interest and suspicion, and, being a woman of penetrating mind, she desired to put riddles and enigmas whereby she could test the proverbial wisdom of Solomon.
When she arrived at his court she did not put flippant questions to King Solomon. She rather sought out the most difficult inquiries which she could possibly make.
It is recorded that Solomon told the queen all her questions, and there was nothing hid from Solomon which he told her not. She was astounded by what she heard and what she saw. She declared that the half had not been told her.
The visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon, though not strictly commercial, arose out of commercial intercourse. The territory of Sheba, according to Strabo, reached so far north as to meet that of the Nabathæans, although its proper seat was at the southernmost angle of Arabia.
The very rich presents made by the queen show the extreme value of her commerce with the Hebrew monarch. This early interchange of hospitality derives a peculiar interest from the fact that in much later ages—those of the Maccabees and downward—the intercourse of the Jews with Sheba became so intimate and their influence and power so great. Jewish circumcision took root there, and princes held sway there who were called Jewish.
The language of Sheba is believed to have been very different from the literate Arabic; yet, like the Ethiopic, it belonged to the great Syro-Arabian family, and was not alien to the Hebrew in the same sense that the Egyptian language was.
The great ease with which the pure monotheism of the Maccabees spread itself in Sheba gives plausibility to the opinion that even at the time of Solomon the people of Sheba had much religious superiority over the Arabs and Syrians in general. If so, it becomes clear how the curiosity of the southern queen would be worked on by seeing the riches of the distant monarch, whose purer creed must have been carried everywhere with them by his sailors and servants.