The Queen of Sheba

Today's episode explores the attributes and works of  Queen Sheba. A Queen in the pursuit of knowledge and answers changed a nation and culture. Queens, you are an influencer to your community, your families, and your workplace. Be bold in who God created you to be.

 💖Highlights💖

-  Be relentless in all created you to become

-  Use the Power that God gave you to change your community

-  Be fierce, Be brave, Be You

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Transcript

The Queen Of Sheba

Betty 00:01

Hello Queens. Welcome to she speaks, love women of the Bible series. We're so excited to share these incredible women of the Bible and highlight their personal story and their legacy. These podcasts will encourage, inspire and share wisdom from God's word, as it relates to women and our unique circumstances.

Let's get into their phenomenal story and the power of their voice. Today's woman of the Bible is the Queen of Sheba presented by Queen Dr. Jan.

Dr. Jan 00:46

Okay, well, greetings Queens. I wanna just start, this is a prayer, I pray every morning when I wake up. Thank you, Holy Spirit for waking me up this morning. Today is the first day of the rest of my life. Thank you for mental and physical capabilities.

And so, I just feel like we have to be thankful, because we have so many people that are infirmed, so many people are going through health challenges. Just the point of recognizing everything is not guaranteed. So that's my prayer, my wish is that everybody has better health.

So, today I'm gonna talk about the Queen of Sheba. And the Queen of Sheba, she has about 10 about 11 passages in the Bible. You find her in 1Kings 10:1-10 ;13, or you could read, say 1- 13, and then, they come back and they talk about her again in 2Chronicles 9:1-12.

Today I wanna start by reading the Bible account of the Queen of Sheba. I'm reading from the message Bible. And I was just sharing with Sheila today, what I like about the message Bible is all the weeds are gone, it's just clear sailing, it's plain English. So ladies, if you want it a little more biblical, we don't have that. It's coming straight and honest, straight to you. So I'm, I'm gonna tell you what the message Bible says about the Queen of Sheba.

The Queen of Sheba heard about Solomon and his connection with the name of God. She came to put his reputation to the test by asking tough questions. She made a grand and showy entrance into Jerusalem.

Camels packed with spices, a huge amount of gold and precious gems. She came to Solomon and talked about all the things that she cared about. She was emptying her heart to him. Solomon answered everything she put to him, nothing stumped him.

When the Queen of Sheba experienced for herself Solomon's wisdom and saw with her own eyes, the palace, he had built, the meals that were served, the impressive array of court officials and sharply dressed, waiters, the lavish crystal, and the elaborate worship, extravagant with whole burnt offerings at the steps leading up to the temple of God. It took her breath away. She said to the king all is true. Your reputation for accomplishment and wisdom that reached all the way to my country is confirmed. I wouldn't have believed it. If I hadn't seen it for myself, they didn't exaggerate such wisdom and elegance far more than I could ever imagined have ever imagine.

Lucky the men and women who work for you, getting to be around you every day and hear your wise words firsthand and blessed be God, you're God who took such a liking to you and made you king. Clearly, God's love for Israel is behind this, making you king to keep a just order and nurture a God pleasing.

Then she gave the king four and a half tons of gold and also sack after sack of spices and expensive gems. There's not been a carnival of spices like that since the shipload, the Queen of Sheba brought to king Solomon.

In verse 13, it says king Solomon for his part gave the Queen of Sheba all her heart's desire. Everything she asked for on top of what he had already, so generously given her. Satisfied, she returned home with her train of servants. And if you read in 2Chronicles, you'll hear the same story. Just a little bit of twist and turns on it.

But I was very curious about this woman in the Bible. And so I did some research. I wanted to find out who she was. Now, I'm a research consultant, so I need to confirm if the source of information has some validity. So it's not like reading a post on Facebook. So I'm gonna share some additional information that I found out about the Queen of Sheba. So I started with looking a Google search and the first thing that popped up was antiquities. And now antiquities of the Jews is a 20 volume historical work that was originally written in Greek by historian, Flavius Josephus in the 11th century. So often people wonder is the Bible true? Are these stories real? So if you look at it from history, you can find the evidence. And so what we want for faith is the evidence of things unseen, evidence can be found in the writings of historical records.

So this was released as an ebook in 2009, and then it was updated in 2017 with an English translation. It is free for anyone to download, but here's what I'm gonna do for you today. I'm gonna read segments of the translation. The English translation because it wasn't Greek of this historical account. And it's written from the perspective of a Jewish man.

So there was then a woman Queen of Egypt and Ethiopia. She was inquisitive into philosophy when this Queen heard of the virtual and the prudence of Solomon, she had a great mind to see him and reports that went every day, abroad, induced her to come to him. She was desirs to be satisfied by her own experience and not by bear hearing.

So she resolved to come to him and that especially ordered to have a trial of his wisdom. While she proposed questions of a very great difficulty and treated that he would solve their hidden meaning accordingly. She came to Jerusalem with great splendor and rich furniture. Where she brought with her, camels Laden with gold, with several sorts of sweet spices and with precious stones. Now upon the King's kind reception of her, he both showed a great desire to please her and easily comprehending in his mind, the meaning of the curious questions she pro-pounded to him. He resolved them sooner than anybody would've expected.

So she was amazed at the wisdom of Solomon and discovered that it was more excellent upon trial that she had heard by report beforehand. It was beyond measure. She was astonished at the house, which was called the forest in Lebanon as, also at the magnificence of his daily table and the circumstances of his preparation, administration with the apparel of his servant that waited and the skillful and decent management of their attendance. Nor was she less affected with those daily sacrifices, which were offered to God and the careful management, which the priest and levites used about them.

When she saw this done every day, she was in the greatest admiration imaginable, in so much, that she was not able to contain the surprise she was in, but openly confessed how wonderfully she was affected. She tells Solomon accordingly, I esteemed the people, as well as my servants and friends, to be happy, to enjoy thy presence and hear thy wisdom every day, continually. One will therefore bless God who have so loved this country. And those that inhabit their in as to make the king over them. So when this Queen of Ethiopia had obtained, what we have already given an account of and had again, communicated to the king, what she brought with her, she returned to her own kingdom.

Now that was the Jewish historical records of the Queen of Sheba. So I was wondering, okay, so what else is out there about the Queen of Sheba? So I looked at the encyclopedia Britanica well, we know that's been around for 250 years, everybody had encyclopedias in their home at one point in time. They're now in britanica.com, but what I found there was some of the folklore concerning the Queen of Sheba.

So she was called Bilqis in Arabic, Mekeda in Ethiopia. And according to the historians, the story provides evidence for the existence of important commercial relations between ancient Israel and Southern Arabia. Now, the story of Bilqis as the Queen of Sheba has been embellished by Muslim commentators.

So Ladies, Get ready for this. It's known in Islamic tradition and appears in the Quran. The Arabs have also given Bilqis a Southern Arabian genealogy, and she's a subject of widespread cycle of legends. According to one legend or a folklore, Solomon having heard from a hoopoe one of his birds, that Bilqis and her kingdom worshiped the sun, sent a letter asking her to worship God. She replied by sending gifts, but when Solomon proved unreceptive to them, she came to his court herself. The King's gen meanwhile, this is his like advisor, fearing that the king might be tempted into marrying Bilqis, whispered to him that she had hairy legs and hoofs of an ass or a donkey.

According to this legend, solomon being curious about such a peculiar phenomenon had a glass floor built before his throne, so that Bilqis, tricked into thinking it was water raised her skirts to cross it and revealed that her legs were truly hairy. Solomon then ordered the gen to create a depilatory for the Queen, shave her legs. And tradition does agree as to whether Solomon himself married, Bilqis, she did however, become a believer.

Okay, now that was the folklore in the Islamic records. Now it still proves that the Queen existed, but you know how that is, they wanted to spin it that way.

So there's another story that comes out of Ethiopia. And this is the story of Mekeda. The Queen of Sheba appears as a prominent figure in the Kebra Nagast and that's a 700 year old Ethiopian historical publication. The English translation is glory of king, and it documents the Ethiopia national, epic and story. And according to this tradition, the Queen of Sheba called Mekeda, visited Solomon's court, after hearing about his wisdom. She stayed and learned from him for six months. On the last night of her visit, he tricked her into his bed and she became pregnant. She returned to her kingdom where she bore Solomon, a son Menyelek. Menyelek was made king by his father, Solomon thus founding the Royal Solomonic Dynasty of Ethiopia. Which ruled Ethiopia until the year 1974 and is responsible for the conversion of Ethiopians from worshiping the sun, moon and stars to worshiping the God of Israel.

I found several other non-biblical sources about the Queen of Sheba, but I'm gonna only share one last one. This one is from the society of biblical literature that was founded in 1880. It's an academic group of people. And what they wanted to know was where was Sheba. The genealogies of the nations play Sheba in the general area of Egypt and Ethiopia. That was probably all the biblical writers knew about the location of Sheba. And for them, it was the edge of the world. One purpose of the story in Kings, 1Kings and 2Chronicles was to show that Solomon's wisdom was famous even in the most distant lands.

Now these are academics talking. Scholars have tried to connect the gifts of Queen of Sheba brought from the possible location of Sheba. She bought spices, gold and precious stones, all products of extreme wealth. Spices in particular, frankincense and myrrh came from the area of modern day, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia on the African coast of the red sea. Ancient gold mines have been found in the same area. However, the area of modern day Yemen on the Arabian coast of the red sea was also the source of spices and lay on a major trade route. This area of Arabia was known as the kingdom of Saba or Sheba as it's converted. And the debate about the location of Sheba remains unresolved, although there have been some recent efforts to claim that the kingdom of Saba straddled the red sea with power in both Arabia and Africa. And that was just written in 2000.

I've given you the Bible record, the Jewish historical record, the Arabian folklore, the Ethiopian history and the academics interpretation of where she came from. In most historical accounts she's described as having dark skin.

Here's a rendition of the Queen as Sheba [photo is being shown during live presentation]. This one says that Sheba, appears in religious texts, sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims. As simply she's described as a Queen of the east. Modern scholars I believe she came from the kingdom Axum and Ethiopia, the kingdom Saba in Yemen or both. And the main clue is that she brought bales of incense with her as a gift ,frankincense, which only grows in those two areas. And so both countries claim her as theirs. 25 kilometers of water, so both could be right.

Here's a rendition of the Queen of Sheba in 17th century painting, it's in the national Ethiopian museum [photo is being shown during live presentation]. This is one characters, this was in Atlanta Black Star, 2015 characters in the Bible you might have known were black. This is their rendition of Queen Sheba. And scientists file a clue to the origins of the Queen of Sheba 11 legend are written. The DNA of some Africans, and this is really recent, they're saying that they have found evidence that the Queen of Sheba had African background.

And this final one is king Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Is a rendition from the history of the cross because the Queen of Sheba by most accounts, historical is that she had African heritage. She was a black woman.

So why is she important to biblical scholars, academics and believers? She was popular. Outside of the Bible. Her story appears a Jewish, Arabic, Persian, Coptic, Uroba Ethiopian, and the historic records of countries in that region. She appears in all the academic, biblical and historical records. And by all accounts, biblical historical, she took the concept of belief in one God, back to Ethiopia and changed the belief of an entire country.

Today we would call her an influencer. In fact, she would most likely have an Instagram or a TikTok page with millions of followers. If she was here today, she is a legend. A legend is a story handed down by tradition from earlier times and properly accepted as historical. In my search, I found the Arabic story and the folklore about her hairy legs. They described her as having donkey legs. And the story of Solomon's mirrored floor could be true or just a fable or this story could be to diminish her biblical significance. Today, we might call that specific story, a soap opera. She was relentless. Her visit with Solomon was to question him and to get a better understanding of the stories she heard about him and his God.

She started by sending him letters, asking him questions. However, when he refused to answer, she decided to see him herself because she wanted to know what mattered. Today, we might call her an activist. She was curious and she demanded answers. She challenged Solomon with her questions and riddles. Imagine her writing out the questions and the riddles that she would put before him. Imagine her sitting and saying, I'm gonna ask him this, I'm asking this, I'm ask this and I'm gonna see if he can answer this riddle, this one, this one, this . She was determined to find out all that Solomon knew about God. You know, with her questions and riddles she could have been a game show host or a researcher like me.

And she, was a Queen. She was not a servant. She was not less than. She didn't come down, come in bowing, down to Solomon. She was not someone that could be told, go away. She came correct. She came with a caravan of spices, gold and precious gems to show Solomon that she was his equal in status riches and power.

And today, we would call her a sovereign or Monarch and some might even wanna call her Oprah. Ladies, I hope I've shared something about the Queen of Sheba. It's not a hundred percent biblical account. But it's an account that comes with history and proof of a story found in our Bible. Proof of faith, not always being the substance of something, not seen. This is faith that was seen.

And she's an important woman in the Bible. She launched a dynasty from ancient biblical times to the year 1974. She had power. Thank you very much, ladies for listening.

Betty 21:01

Queens, thank you so much for spending time listening to, she speaks love podcast and being part of this amazing sister keeper community. Our heart is to bring you content that is educational, inspirational, relatable, and it encourages you to share the power of your voice. So you don't miss any of the conversations we invite you to subscribe to she speaks love wherever you listen to podcast, please like comment and. follow us on our blog@shespeakslove.com.

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