1 Kings 10

This chapter belongs to the latter part of the account of Solomon's reign in 1 Kings (chapters 1–11). 1 Kings 9 ends with Solomon's building projects and the fleet to Ophir that he operated with Hiram. This chapter continues by depicting Solomon's glory at its height. A parallel account appears in 2 Chronicles 9.

Outline

• Verses 1–10 Having heard of Solomon's fame, the Queen of Sheba comes to Jerusalem to test him with hard questions. Solomon answers all of her questions. Amazed at the palace, his servants, and the ascent by which he went up to the house of the LORD, the queen blesses the LORD and gives the king 120 talents of gold, along with spices and precious stones.
• Verses 11–12 Hiram's ships bring almug trees and precious stones from Ophir, and the king uses the wood to make railings (KJV "pillars") for the temple and the palace, as well as harps and psalteries.
• Verse 13 Solomon gives the queen all that she asks, and she returns to her own country.
• Verses 14–22 The gold that came in each year weighed 666 talents. Solomon makes 200 large shields and 300 small shields of gold and places them in the House of the Forest of Lebanon. He also makes an ivory throne overlaid with gold and adorned with lions, along with vessels of gold. Once every three years the ships of Tarshish bring gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks.
• Verses 23–25 People from all the earth come year by year with gifts to hear Solomon's wisdom.
• Verses 26–29 Solomon maintains 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horsemen. He makes silver as common as stones, and he imports horses and chariots from Egypt, also supplying them to the kings of the Hittites and of Aram.

Key Verses

• 1 Kings 10:9 "… therefore made he thee king, to do judgment and justice." Through the words of a foreign queen, the text declares the purpose for which the king was established.
• 1 Kings 10:23 "So king Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth for riches and for wisdom." This verse sums up the prosperity of Solomon's era in a single sentence.

People and Places

• Solomon: The son of David and the third king of Israel.
• Queen of Sheba: A queen who came from Sheba in the south; the text does not give her name.
• Hiram: The king of Tyre, who engaged in maritime trade with Solomon.
• Ophir: A source of gold and almug wood. Various locations have been proposed, including Arabia, East Africa, and India.
• Tarshish: A distant seaport; the phrase "ships of Tarshish" is understood to refer to large oceangoing vessels.
• House of the Forest of Lebanon: A palace Solomon built of cedar (1 Kings 7).

Points for Reflection

• Many interpreters read this chapter together with the decline that immediately follows in 1 Kings 11. Deuteronomy 17 instructs the king not to multiply horses, not to cause the people to return to Egypt, and not to greatly multiply silver and gold, and verses 26–29 portray precisely these things. On this reading, a warning already lies beneath the outward splendor. Other interpreters, by contrast, read the chapter as depicting the fulfillment of the blessing God promised (1 Kings 3:13).
• Regarding the location of Sheba, some identify it with South Arabia (present-day Yemen), while others identify it with Ethiopia. Ethiopian tradition holds that the queen bore Solomon a son, but this is a later story not found in the biblical text.
• Some readers connect the number 666 in verse 14 with the number in Revelation 13:18, but the text itself speaks only of the weight of the gold received as revenue.
• In Matthew 12:42 and Luke 11:31, Jesus refers to "the queen of the south," who came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and says that "a greater than Solomon is here."