1 Samuel 17

Chapter 17. The Queen of ShebaThey came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.” (John 12:21)When the queen of Sheba heard about the fame of Solomon and his relation to the name of the Lord, she came to test him with hard questions. Arriving at Jerusalem with a very great caravan—with camels carrying spices, large quantities of gold, and precious stones—she came to Solomon and talked with him about all that she had on her mind. Solomon answered all her questions; nothing was too hard for the king to explain to her. When the queen of Sheba saw all the wisdom of Solomon and the palace he had built, the food on his table, the seating of his officials, the attending servants in their robes, his cupbearers, and the burnt offerings he made at the temple of the Lord, she was overwhelmed.She said to the king “The report I heard in my own country about your achievements and your wisdom is true. But I did not believe these thing until I came and saw with my own eyes. Indeed, not even half was told me; in wisdom and wealth you have far exceeded the report I heard How happy your men must be! How happy your officials, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom! Praise be to the Lord your God, who has delighted in you and placed you on the throne of Israel Because of the Lord’s eternal love for Israel, he has made you king to maintain justice and righteousness.And she gave the king 120 talents of gold, large quantities of spices, and precious stones. Never again were so many spices brought in as those the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon. (1 Kings 10:1-10)The story of the Queen of Sheba is authenticated by our Lord’s direct allusion to it in the New Testament (Matthew 12:42), and in the same passage He clearly intimates that Solomon in this incident of his life was a type of a Greater than he. This is also brought out very clearly in a single phrase in the first verse of the narrative in the 10th chapter of First Kings, where it is said that “When the queen of Sheba heard about the fame of Solomon and his relation to the name of the Lord, she came to test him with hard questions.” That phrase, “his relation to the name of the Lord,” identifies Solomon with the Lord in her conception, and makes it evident that she thought of him not so much as a wonderful man and a glorious king but rather the representative of Jehovah, the true theocratic King of Israel. We are to look at this passage, therefore, as typical of the Lord Jesus Christ, both in His present relation to the world, which He has redeemed, and more especially in His future relation, when He shall come again in a glory grander than Solomon ever knew. This remarkable woman, evidently a princess of enormous wealth in some portion of Arabia, had heard of Solomon’s wisdom as well as the splendor of his kingdom, and came with a vast caravan and costly treasure to visit him at Jerusalem and commune with him of all that was in her heart. The girts that she brought him aggregated more than $3 million in value, and the spices were superior to anything which ever again was known in Israel. She was royally welcomed and received into Solomon’s most intimate confidence and fellowship and sent back with a heart fully satisfied and her own gifts all returned, while the king added much more of his own royal bounty. This picture represents the cry of the nations after God. Her longing to meet this wonderful man was just the expression of her deep desire to find someone that could meet the needs of her heart and satisfy the doubts and perplexities of her troubled and burdened mind. The world’s cry is, like the Greeks of old, “We would like to see Jesus” (John 12:21). It does not know that this is its cry, but it is all the same. In the blind idolatries and stupid superstitions of the heathen world, we see many groping after God according to the best light and truest conception they know. It is not true that the heathen are ready to welcome the gospel of Jesus Christ, but it is true that their hearts are earnestly seeking for something which Christ alone can satisfy. Let us send the true light and it will awaken a response in every true heart. Again, she represented the individual seeking God and coming to Him with his hard questions and consecrated offerings. Doubtless, also, she represents that grander scene which the millennial ages are to unfold when her people and all the nations of the earth shall come as she came to Jerusalem to visit not Solomon but the greater King, to lay their tribute at the feet of the King of kings and the Lord of lords. This was the vision that Isaiah saw down the distant future, and of which he wrote so often in glowing characters, “Some [will come] from the north, some from the west, some from the region of Aswan” (Isaiah 49:12). “Your sons come from afar, and your daughters are carried on the arm” (Isaiah 60:4). “Herds of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah. And all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the Lord” (Isaiah 60:6). What She Brought She did not come empty-handed, but she brought an offering to the great king (1 Kings 10:2, 1 Kings 10:10). She brought the best she had. Her costly treasures of gold and more precious spices express the finer figures of the heart’s devotion and love. It may seem strange that she should bring such a costly gift to one who did not need it, for he was richer far than she. But that is just the reason God asks our gifts. He does not go begging for help for His cause because He is in distress, but He tells us that all the fowls of the mountain are His, the cattle upon a thousand hills (Psalms 50:10-11) and all the gold of earth’s mines, and that He asks our offerings not for His sake, but for ours, that we may be kingly, too, and like Him in our largeness of heart and fellowship of service. He gives us the privilege of taking part with Him in the work of these momentous days. Some day we shall understand what a privilege and honor it was. We are to bring Him our gifts as the recognition of His sovereignty and our trust and love, and He, like Solomon, will show His character by giving back to us more than we brought. You may talk of sentimental piety and keep your money to yourself, but the truth is, God knows and you know, also, that you mean it just to the extent to which you are willing to pay for it and sacrifice for it. The test of love forever must be action and sacrifice. Jesus asks something of us, nay, He asks everything of us as a guarantee that we mean it with all our hearts and then He treats us on the same principle and gives us all that He has. When the woman of Samaria met the Lord, He asked something of her before He blessed and saved her. He required her to give Him a draught of water and He gave her in return an ocean of living water. The highest spiritual experience is not to receive merely, but it is to give. “My lover is mine” is not so deep a place of holy blessing as to be able to add, “My lover is mine and I am his” (SS 2:16). The very height of rapture is the single utterance of entire surrender, “I belong to my lover” (SS 7:10). What She Sought

1. She sought light upon her hard questions (1 Kings 10:1). There were many things that she longed to know. Doubtless she asked him about that great God whose name was written upon the spangled skies of her southern home but whose nature was unknown to her. Doubtless she asked him about herself and her strangely confused condition, the perplexities of her struggling soul, how to satisfy her accusing conscience, how to resist her fierce temptations, how to be right, how to be happy, and, doubtless, she asked him about the great future, the destiny of the soul and the hopes and fears that look out upon the eternal future; all this which has perplexed the ages, no doubt, was brought to him for the searching light of truth and wisdom from above. We, too, have our hard questions to bring to Christ. We need keep nothing back, for He has said that we may tell Him of all our cares, perplexities and sorrows, and that He will never send us away unblessed.
2. She sought Solomon’s own personal acquaintance and fellowship (1 Kings 10:2). It was not merely truth that she wanted to know, but she wanted to meet a living heart that had made all this truth real and proved all these hard questions in the ordeal of life. And so it is not so much knowledge and light we need as it is Jesus Himself. The heart is reaching out for a Person, One strong enough and wise enough for us to lean all our weight upon and One tender and true enough for us to feel we may come to and open our heart with all its wounds and even with all its sin. This she found in Solomon and this we find in Jesus Christ. What She Saw
3. She saw Solomon’s wonderful wisdom and personal work and glory (1 Kings 10:4-5). It was Solomon himself that impressed her most. The marginal reading gives a fine sense to her tribute. “Behold,” she says, “thou hast added wisdom and goodness to the fame which I heard” (1 Kings 10:7 marginal reading). It was his wisdom and goodness that impressed her most. To her he represented the character of God and helped her to understand that greater Being in whose bosom the heart finds its resting place.
4. She was struck with the house that he had built (1 Kings 10:4). The temple was finished, and with its massive columns, its splendid marbles, its glittering pinnacles of burnished gold and its priceless treasures of interior adornment, it was the most wonderful building in the world. But, doubtless, Solomon explained to her in all its minuteness of detail the higher meaning of the interior, the deep significance of that altar of burnt offering, that laver of cleansing, that lamp of celestial light, that table significant of the Living Bread, that sweet incense that spoke of the very breath of heaven, and that innermost shrine where God looked out from the Shekinah flame with His loving eye from between the cherubim. As all this had opened upon her spiritual vision and had lifted her up to God, that wonderful house became the symbol of all sacred truth and the type of that glorious spiritual edifice, the Church of the living God, the company of all the holy, the body and bride of the Lamb, the next most wonderful thing in the universe after God Himself, namely, God’s people. Some day we shall be part of it and then we shall not wonder that Christ died for this glorious Church.
5. The food on his table next impressed her (1 Kings 10:5). The ample and immense provision which Solomon provided for the food of his household— 20 oxen and 120 sheep every day, besides innumerable other sources of supplies, made up the larder of his palace. But it may have spoken to her, and certainly it speaks to us, of that heavenly table where our God provides the richer supplies of His grace for His household, living Bread hewn from the rock, refreshing wine, the very life and love of Jesus, who gives us His flesh to eat and His heart to nourish our spiritual and physical need and make us partakers of His glorious life and members of His body, His flesh and His bone.
6. The “sitting of his servants” (1 Kings 10:5) impressed her. The first thing she noticed about them was that they were sitting. They were resting and waiting for orders. How it speaks to us of the true posture, where service must begin. Sitting at the feet of Jesus to hear His word and to be filled with the Spirit, to be commissioned for His service and to be broken into yieldedness and nothingness that He may use us and we may not hinder.
7. The standing of his servants was the next thing she noticed (1 Kings 10:5). It is not only necessary for us to sit at the feet of Jesus but to stand waiting to do the commands of Jesus. This expresses the attitude of readiness with girded loins and attentive ear to catch the first whisper of His will.
8. She also noticed his cupbearers (1 Kings 10:5). These represented a still higher service. They are the men who waited on the king himself, and they suggest the sort of service which is not for men, but for God, which is not what the world would call usefulness, but which is the direct, personal ministry of the Lord Jesus Himself which He requires at our hand. He has a right to exclusive love. He has needs which His people’s hearts alone can fill. There are prayers and songs which should be poured into His ears, not to bring back the supply of some selfish want, but to manifest to Him some sweet sense of His children’s love, some cup of wine from the chalice of an overflowing heart.
9. The ascent by which he went up to the house of the Lord (1 Kings 10:5, marginal reading) was one of the things she saw. To her it spoke of that higher life which was the real glory of Solomon’s character and reign. It is to tell us of the resurrection and ascension of our glorious Lord and of our partnership with Him in the throne life where He sits at the Father’s side in our name and as our Head. Perhaps she did not understand all these things as we do, but she saw something of their deeper meaning and she felt more. Her heart was lifted up to a new world of peace and hope and joy and henceforth life had an upper passage to her by which she, too, could ascend to the house of the Lord and live in the higher planes of heavenly communion and eternal hope. What She Got
10. She got the answer to all her hard questions (1 Kings 10:3). She got the light she needed. She got the direction which made her pathway plain. She got the rest which quieted her troubled heart and led her forth into the ways of peace. So will you receive at His blessed feet the light, the truth and the peace that you so sorely need, and you shall go forth singing: I came to Jesus as I was, Weary and worn and sad. I found in Him a resting place And He has made me glad. I came to Jesus and I found In Him my shield, my sun, And in that light of life I’ll walk Till traveling days are done.
11. She got back all that she gave to Solomon (2 Chronicles 9:12). He returned all her costly gifts, not in such a way as to hurt her sensitiveness, fully appreciating the love that prompted it, but in the generosity of his heart he refused to let her lose what she had so lovingly given. This is the way God loves to test us, first to take all that we have and then give back in some better way what we so willingly resigned.
12. She got, besides all this, Solomon’s own royal bounty (1 Kings 10:13). He gave her a present from his kingly treasures, which was certainly not less than the one she brought up, as much as she esteemed him greater than herself. And so she went back partaker of the king’s riches as well as the possessor of her own. Thus we gain by giving. Thus we possess twice over by letting go. Thus we slowly learn the folly of driving a close bargain with our God and the blessing of being wholehearted, especially with our consecration. We must remember in order to fully understand the typical lesson that Christ has not yet fulfilled all the meaning of the Solomonic type. It reaches forward into the age to come. It is then that we shall have the added things in all their fullness and understand the hundredfold which He has promised and all the glory of our inheritance in full partnership with Him as our exalted King and blessed Bridegroom. What She Said Her testimony was beautiful and simple.
13. She bore testimony to the word which she had heard and said it was true (1 Kings 10:6). So should our lives witness to God’s Word.
14. She bore testimony that it was less than the truth. “Not even half (1 Kings 10:7), she said, was told. So should our lives not only fill out, but amplify, adorn and expand God’s Word. His Word is the skeleton and we are to fill it out with real flesh and blood until it becomes an attraction and an inspiration to the world, which sees its interpretation in our lives.
15. She bore witness to Solomon’s servants and attendants (1 Kings 10:8). She had as many good words to say about them as she had about Solomon. And so our testimony should be as bright and as cheerful about the people of God as it is about Christ. And yet how much we hear of the faults of Christians. If the world were to judge God’s people by what you say about them, it is very doubtful that they would want to be in such company. Beloved, are you talking about Christ’s servants as you talk about Christ? What kind of a testimony are you giving? What kind of an impression are you reflecting upon the world? Are you leading them to say, “Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you” (Zechariah 8:23)?
16. She bore testimony to Solomon (1 Kings 10:6-7), and this high testimony, that he himself was more than his surroundings. This is the greatest thought in connection with Christian life and testimony and in connection with their Christian character—the man should be greater than his work and his surroundings. This was true of Solomon. As splendid as his surroundings were, his own personal qualities transcended all his greatness, and his surroundings were but a fit setting for the jewel of his personal character. When the late Queen of England stood in the center of a pageant assembled from all the world to pay honor to her on the 60th anniversary of her coronation, the highest testimony on that occasion, and the testimony that was repeated in all languages and by representatives of all nations, was this: that the woman was greater than the queen and that her personal worth was the truest glory of her reign. This is true of our blessed King, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not His gifts, but it is His heart that makes Him the love and pride of heaven. And this should be the aim of the child of God. It is not the place you want but the personality that will claim the highest place. It is not things you need, but personal qualities that will lift you above all things and bring all things to pay tribute to you. God, lead us to Christ Himself who is the center of Christianity. And with Him incarnate in our lives, let us be living embodiments of the Christianity we profess, and commendations of the gospel which we preach.