First Kings 10:1-5 speak of the visit of an unknown queen of Sheba to Solomon. Here we are given two reasons why she made the trip. Where exactly was Sheba? Where she hailed from is not as important as why she made the trip. This passage concentrates on the two reasons why she visited Solomon.
Firstly,
it was because she had heard of the fame of Solomon and wanted to ascertain
that what she had heard about him was true. Solomon, as we know, had the
reputation of being the wisest person of his time. The queen wanted to
determine for herself if Solomon did indeed truly deserve such an acclaim.
Secondly, it was because of the name of the Lord through whom
Solomon was granted this exceptional gift of wisdom and wealth. She
probably wanted to know who was this God who had endowed him with such
incredible wisdom and wealth.
The
queen did not come empty-handed. She came with a whole load of gifts such as “camels carrying
spices and very much gold and precious stones.” Most of all she came with a lot
of difficult questions to test Solomon. We get the impression that she did not
restrict herself; she just freely offloaded her questions. What’s amazing in
this account was that there was not a single question of hers that Solomon did
not give an adequate answer to. Every one of her queries was satisfactorily
explained. Moreover, she also saw with her own eyes the orderliness of the
king’s setup. She was astonished by “the house that he had built, the
food of his table, the seating of his servants, the attendance of his waiters
and their attire, his cupbearers, and his stairway by which he went up to
the house of the Lord.” So she did not only hear the wisdom from the
king’s own mouth, but she also saw with her eyes his fabulous set-up. Solomon’s
wisdom had indeed surpassed that of her expectation, and she was left so
dumbfounded that verse 5 said that there was no more spirit in her. In other
words, she had exhausted everything she wanted to know that there was nothing left
to explore with Solomon. She was left with no more words to say.
The
queen of Sheba gives us a picture of a person who would not take things without
examining them to ascertain their genuineness. She had come to be a symbol
of a seeker of truth. It was said that she traveled a great distance to determine
for herself that what she had heard was not just hearsay. Concerning truth,
this is the spirit every child of God must adopt. We must not just be contented
with hearsay. We must take time to search and explore the truth. The queen of
Sheba reminds us of the believers in Berea recorded in Acts 17. In
verse 11 of Acts 17, we are told that they received the word of God from
Paul with great eagerness. But they also examined the Scriptures
daily to see whether what Paul said to them was so. Isn’t
this in essence the spirit of the queen of Sheba? We need to be willing to get
to the truth for it is the truth that will set us free. But how will we know
the truth if we do not develop a divine
curiosity?
No comments:
Post a Comment