Kings I 10:1

1 And Samuel took a vial of oil, and poured on his head, and kissed him, and said to him, Has not the Lord anointed thee for a ruler over his people, over Israel? and thou shalt rule among the people of the Lord, and thou shalt save them out of the hand of their enemies; and this the sign to thee that the Lord has anointed thee for a ruler over his inheritance.

Kings I 10:1 Meaning and Commentary

1 Kings 10:1

And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon,
&c.] Josephus ^F21 calls her a queen of Egypt and Ethiopia; but Sheba was in the southern part of Arabia Felix; her name with the Ethiopians is Maqueda ^F23, and with the Arabic geographer ^F24 Belequis. Some ^F25 think that Sheba, or Saba, is not the name of a country, but of the queen herself; and that she is the same with Sabbe the sibyl mentioned by Pausanias ^F26; but no doubt Sheba or Saba, the metropolis of Arabia Felix, as Philostorgius ^F1 calls it, is here meant; which Benjamin of Tudela says ^F2 is called the country of Al Yeman, or the south; and the name of Queen Teiman, given to this queen by an Arabic writer ^F3, seems to be the same as the queen of the south, (See Gill on Matthew 12:42). The fame of Solomon's greatness and goodness, of his wealth and riches, and especially of his wisdom, had reached her ears; perhaps by means of the ambassadors of princes that had been at Solomon's court, and attended her's. According to an Ethiopic writer ^F4 it was by Tamerinus, a merchant of her's, she came to hear of him: particularly she heard of his fame

concerning the name of the Lord;
his knowledge of the true God, the favour he was in with him, the excellent wisdom he had received from him, and what he had done for his honour and glory:

she came to prove him with hard questions;
in things natural, civil, and divine; to try whether he had such a share of knowledge and wisdom it was said he had, she posed him with enigmas, riddles, dark and intricate sayings, to unravel and tell the meaning of. She might be an emblem of the Gentiles, seeking unto Christ, having heard of him, ( Isaiah 11:10 ) ( John 12:20 John 12:21 ) . In ( Matthew 12:42 ) she is said to come from the "uttermost parts of the earth"; wherefore some fetch her from Sumatra in the East Indies, where in an old map no other name is put but Sheba {e}.

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FOOTNOTES:

F21 Antiqu. l. 8. c. 6. sect. 2, 5.
F23 Ludolf. Ethiop. Hist. l. 2. c. 3.
F24 Clim 1. par. 6.
F25 Vid. Coryli Disser. de Reg. Austral. c. l. sect. 1, 2.
F26 Phocica, sive, l. 10. p. 631.
F1 Hist. Eccl. l. 3. c. 4.
F2 Itinerar. p. 82.
F3 Abulpharag. Hist. Dynast. Dyn. 3. p. 54.
F4 Tellezius apud Ludolf. Ethiop. Hist. l. 2. c. 3.
F5 Dampier's Voyages, vol. 2. p. 139.

Kings I 10:1 In-Context

1 And Samuel took a vial of oil, and poured on his head, and kissed him, and said to him, Has not the Lord anointed thee for a ruler over his people, over Israel? and thou shalt rule among the people of the Lord, and thou shalt save them out of the hand of their enemies; and this the sign to thee that the Lord has anointed thee for a ruler over his inheritance.

2 as thou shalt have departed this day from me, thou shalt find two men by the burial-place of Rachel on the mount of Benjamin, exulting greatly; and they shall say to thee, The asses are found which ye went to seek; and, behold, thy father has given up the matter of the asses, and he is anxious for you, saying, What shall I do for my son?

3 And thou shalt depart thence, and shalt go beyond that as far as the oak of Thabor, and thou shalt find there three men going up to God to Baethel, one bearing three kids, and another bearing three vessels of bread, and another bearing a bottle of wine.

4 And they shall ask thee how thou doest, and shall give thee two presents of bread, and thou shall receive them of their hand.

5 And afterward thou shalt go to the hill of God, where is the encampment of the Philistines; there Nasib the Philistine: an it shall come to pass when ye shall have entered into the city, that thou shalt meet a band of prophets coming down from the Bama; and before them will be lutes, and a drum, and a pipe, and a harp, and they shall prophesy.