2 Chronicleschapter 9
31 verses · Ezra, by tradition · 450 to 400 BC · History
As for the rest of the acts of Solomon, from beginning to end, are they not written in the Records of Nathan the Prophet, in the Prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and in the Visions of Iddo the Seer concerning Jeroboam son of Nebat?
Introduction
Ezra, by tradition, History, 2 Chronicles Overview.
This chapter was written for a small nation wondering whether the world would ever look its way again. Tradition gives the book to Ezra. It closes the reign of Solomon with a foreign visitor and then an inventory of wealth. Listen for whom the queen of Sheba credits when she speaks. Weigh the gold, the ivory and the ships as the writer's way of measuring a reign. The writer ends Solomon's story at this height and leaves the later failures to the older history in 1 Kings 11, and the choice is deliberate.
Context
- Who
- A small nation wondering whether the world would ever look its way again
- What
- The visit of the queen of Sheba, an inventory of Solomon's gold, throne and trade, and the record of his death.
- Where
- The court at Jerusalem, and the incense road running north from Sheba in south west Arabia.
- When
- The last decades of Solomon's reign, about 950 to 930 BC.
- Why
- To show the nations coming to Jerusalem to hear the wisdom God gave, and to close the reign as a picture of what the kingdom was meant to be.
Historical context
The chapter belongs to a foreign queen and then to the record of the king she visited, in the last decades of the reign.
Show the rest of the historical context, 5 more paragraphs
Sheba lay in south west Arabia, in the region of modern Yemen, and it grew rich on frankincense and myrrh. Those resins come from trees that grow almost nowhere else and were burned by the ton in temples from Egypt to Babylon.
The occasion is a state visit with hard questions in it. The caravan road north ran some fifteen hundred miles, and every kingdom along it taxed the traffic. A queen of Sheba visiting the king who held the northern end of that road was doing business as well as asking questions.
A first hearer could read her gifts as trade. A hundred and twenty talents of gold, a very great quantity of spices, and precious stones, and the text says there was never such spice as she gave.
The court inventory is the writer's way of showing the scale. Six hundred and sixty six talents of gold came in yearly. There was a great ivory throne overlaid with gold, with six steps and twelve lions, and gold shields hung in the House of the Forest of Lebanon. The drinking vessels were gold, because silver was reckoned as nothing.
The ships of Tarshish that returned every three years with gold, silver, ivory, apes and peacocks are named for a ship type rather than a destination, a large vessel able to work the open sea. The last item in the cargo list is uncertain in the Hebrew and may be baboons, and either way it is exotic African and Indian Ocean freight.
Significance
What the queen says at the height of the visit is the point the writer wants kept. She blesses the LORD his God, who delighted in Solomon and set him on his throne to be king for the LORD his God. She credits the God rather than the man.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
A nation that had been carried off and forgotten heard that the world had once come to Jerusalem to listen. The prophets promised it would happen again, and this chapter was the sample.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
2 Chronicles is not read in the synagogue. Chronicles stands among the Writings in the Hebrew canon rather than among the Prophets the Haftarah is drawn from. The division into two books came in through the Greek. The book therefore carries neither a weekly Torah portion nor a Haftarah, and this site's own reading table records the same for all thirty-six chapters. The queen of Sheba and the close of Solomon's reign are met in the commentary and the midrash instead, and the rest of this card is drawn from them.
How it is read
The queen came to test whether the report of Solomon's wisdom was true (Rashi on II Chronicles 9:1:1, the Judaica Press Tanach with Rashi, CC-BY). She admitted the report when she saw that nothing she asked him was hidden. Rashi then points the reader somewhere else for the questions themselves. Some of the riddles she asked are written in the Targum Sheni of the Scroll of Esther (Rashi on II Chronicles 9:2:1). He sends the reader to the same Targum again for the throne, where the whole form of it and of the beasts on it is depicted (Rashi on II Chronicles 9:19:1). The tradition of Solomon's throne is therefore carried in Jewish sources outside this book, and the commentary treats that as the place to go.
The vocabulary of the chapter draws short notes. The food of the table he glosses from the Kings parallel as fowl and kinds of delicacies in abundance (Rashi on II Chronicles 9:4:1). The half the queen had not heard he reads as the many wisdoms (Rashi on II Chronicles 9:6:1). The algum wood he explains from the Pesikta, where the two spellings are one word, named for the way it melted and bent because of its softness (Rashi on II Chronicles 9:10:1). The path made of it he takes as stairs, and reports that some hold the two words in the two books are the same (Rashi on II Chronicles 9:11:1). The shield at the fifteenth verse is the kind that encompasses a man on three sides (Rashi on II Chronicles 9:15:1). The ivory of the throne and of the cargo is the tusks of elephants (Rashi on II Chronicles 9:17:1 and 9:21:1). The house of the forest of Lebanon he identifies as the huge house in Jerusalem where the shields were kept, until Shishak took them (Rashi on II Chronicles 9:16:1).
Two notes are about the Chronicler's own hand. The phrase about what the queen had brought stands here in place of the Kings phrase about what Solomon gave her. Rashi says it is written this way "in deference to the honor of the kings of Judah", so that she is shown giving him more than he gave her (Rashi on II Chronicles 9:12:1). The guides of the fourteenth verse he explains from the danger of travel, since traders feared to cross from province to province without one and paid the guide's fee (Rashi on II Chronicles 9:14:1).
The close of the reign Rashi reads as promise kept and commandment broken in the same paragraph. The wealth fulfils what God said at Gibeon about riches and honour, and the coming of the kings fulfils what was said about a wise and understanding heart (Rashi on II Chronicles 9:22:1 and 9:23:1). Their gifts he treats as a pretext, since they came to hear the wisdom and it is disrespectful to come before a king empty-handed (Rashi on II Chronicles 9:24:1). Then at the horses he states a fault this book never states. Solomon kept them in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem, and in doing so "he transgressed [the negative commandment of]" multiplying horses to himself (Rashi on II Chronicles 9:25:1). The Chronicler gives this reign an unclouded close, and the classical Jewish commentary names the transgression inside it.
Metzudat David comments across this chapter as well. The corpus carries his refs with the reason that Sefaria holds no English version of them, so they stand here cited and unquoted. Metzudat David on II Chronicles 9:8:1, 9:9:1, 9:13:1, 9:20:1, 9:26:1 and 9:27:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries twenty-two rabbinic locators for this chapter and the text of none. Each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. The throne and the drinking vessels draw the heaviest run, and it falls on the law of the king. The twentieth verse, where every vessel was gold and silver counted for nothing, carries six. Three are talmudic, at Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 2:6:6, Menachot 29a:6 and Sanhedrin 21b:14. Three are midrashic: Midrash Lekach Tov, Deuteronomy 17:17:1, Midrash Tanchuma, Achrei Mot 1:1 and Shir HaShirim Rabbah 1:1:10.
The horses at the twenty-fifth verse carry four, and they reach for the same tractate. They are Bamidbar Rabbah 11:7, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 2:11, Ein Yaakov, Sanhedrin 2:13 and Sanhedrin 21b:13. The chariots and horsemen of the twenty-eighth carry Sifrei Bamidbar 42:3.
The throne itself carries the next run. The seventeenth verse, the great throne of ivory overlaid with pure gold, carries Esther Rabbah 1:12. The eighteenth, the six steps and the footstool and the stays, carries Bamidbar Rabbah 12:17, Midrash Tanchuma, Vaetchanan 1:1 and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Vaetchanan 1:1. The fifteenth, the beaten gold shields, carries Jerusalem Talmud Yoma 4:4:5, and the sixteenth carries Kohelet Rabbah 2:6:1.
The rest follow the visit and the close. The tenth verse, the algum wood and the precious stones from Ophir, carries Otzar Midrashim, Chuppah of Eliyahu, Seven Chupot or Eliyahu's Chuppah 4. The twelfth, what Solomon gave the queen, carries Kohelet Rabbah 2:8:1. The twenty-third, the kings of the earth seeking his presence, carries Shemot Rabbah 15:26 and Sifrei Aggadah on Esther, Midrash Abba Guryon 1:3. The thirtieth, the forty years of his reign over all Israel, carries Shir HaShirim Rabbah 1:1:6. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on II Chronicles 9:1:1 to 9:25:1, eighteen kept notes, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, CC-BY; Targum Sheni of Esther, the riddles and the throne reported inside Rashi on II Chronicles 9:2:1 and 9:19:1, cited there as the Targum of Megillath Esther 1:2; Pesikta, the reading of the algum wood reported inside Rashi on II Chronicles 9:10:1; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on II Chronicles 9:8:1, 9:9:1, 9:13:1, 9:20:1, 9:26:1 and 9:27:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/2-chronicles/9.json, the 22 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; This site's reading table, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed in this lane: 2-chronicles parashot total 0, haftarah uses total 0, hasSynagogueReading true for 0 of 36 chapters, festivalReadingForBook null.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
The queen of Sheba: the half was not told me
2 Chronicles 9:1-2
when the queen of Sheba heard about the fame of Solomon: The queen of Sheba comes “to test him with difficult questions”. Jesus names her the Queen of the South who will rise against a generation that refuses “One greater than Solomon,” at Matthew 12:42. Near the reign's close, the visit answers 1:1, where the LORD “highly exalted him”.
Solomon answered all her questions: The queen came with difficult questions, and none went unanswered. Verse 23 names the source of the answers as the wisdom God put in Solomon's heart. Barnes finds the account close to its parallel in Kings, varying from it little and adding nothing to it.
2 Chronicles 9:3-4
When the queen of Sheba saw the wisdom of Solomon: What overwhelms the queen is “the food at his table, the seating of his servants, the service and attire of his attendants and cupbearers”. Chronicles lists the same items as 1 Kings 10:4-5 in the same order. The offerings at the temple stand last among the wonders she sees.
the food at his table: The list ends at the house of the LORD. The last item reads two ways, as the burnt offerings Solomon presented or as his ascent to the house. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown take the ascent as an arched viaduct across the valley from Mount Zion.
2 Chronicles 9:5-6
She confesses that the report she carried from home fell short: “not half of the greatness of your wisdom was told to me”. Report and sight are set against each other, “until I came and saw with my own eyes,” the same structure as 1 Kings 10:6-7.
saw with my own eyes: The queen had doubted the reports until she came herself. Her admission that half had been left untold leads her from praise of Solomon's servants in verse 7 to praise of his God. Henry says she traces the happiness of king and kingdom to its fountain, the favour of God.
2 Chronicles 9:7-8
How blessed are your men!: Her blessing moves to God, “who has delighted in you to set you on His throne to be king for the LORD your God”. The words match 1 Chronicles 28:5 and 29:23, where Solomon sits on the throne of the LORD, and here a foreign queen says the same.
king for the LORD your God: Wesley reads king for the LORD as ruling in the LORD's name and in His place. Solomon sat on God's throne over God's people. She also names its purpose: justice and righteousness.
2 Chronicles 9:8
“For the Lord - In the Lord's name and stead, in a special manner, because he sat in God's own throne, and ruled over God's peculiar people, and did in an eminent manner maintain the honour of God in his land, and in the eyes of all the world. Those mercies are doubly sweet, in which we can taste the kindness and good will of God as our God.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Then she gave the king 120 talents of gold: Her gift of gold and spices in great quantity brings to Solomon the riches promised at 1:12 by a stranger's hand. The verse's own comment, “There had never been such spices as those the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon,” marks the gift as unrepeated.
2 Chronicles 9:9
“So that, all things considered, the promise was fulfilled, that God would give him riches, and wealth, and honour, such as no kings have had, or shall have, ch. i.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Chronicles 9:10-11
brought gold from Ophir: The narrator breaks to note the servants of Hiram and of Solomon brought algum wood from Ophir. The king made steps for the temple and the palace, and “lyres and harps for the singers,” the choirs of 1 Chronicles 25. Kings calls the same wood almug at 1 Kings 10:11-12.
made the algum wood into steps: Algum wood from Ophir became steps for the temple and the palace. Henry reads the whole account of this wealth as the fulfillment of the promise in chapter 1 of riches, wealth and honour beyond any king. The lyres and harps went to the singers.
Solomon answers her gift with his own, beyond what she brought, and she returns to her own land. Clarke notes the verse does not mean Solomon returned her presents but added royal bounty on top, gifts fit for curiosities she could carry home.
2 Chronicles 9:12
“Beside that which she had brought unto the king - In 1Ki 10:13 it is stated that Solomon gave her all she asked, besides that which he gave her of his royal bounty. It is not at all likely that he gave her back the presents which she brought to him, and which he had accepted. She had, no doubt, asked for several things which were peculiar to the land of Judea, and would be curiosities in her own kingdom; and besides these, he gave her other valuable presents.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Six hundred sixty-six talents, and silver counted as nothing
2 Chronicles 9:13-16
The weight of gold that came to Solomon each year: The yearly gold, “666 talents,” funds two hundred large shields and three hundred small shields kept in the House of the Forest of Lebanon. The shields do not stay Solomon's: 12:9 records Shishak taking “the gold shields that Solomon had made,” and Rehoboam makes bronze shields in their place.
revenue from the merchants and traders: The 666 talents were only the yearly weight. Revenue from merchants and traders came on top, with gold and silver from Arabian kings and governors. Henry reads the kings' gold as freewill offerings to win Solomon's favour, or as payment for the grain and cattle of his farms.
2 Chronicles 9:14
“The kings of Arabia - “The kings of Sistevantha.” - Targum.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
two hundred large shields: Each large shield took six hundred shekels of hammered gold. Barnes compares 1 Kings 10:16-17 and concludes that the pound of gold named there equalled one hundred shekels. The gold shields were gone by Rehoboam's fifth year, carried off by Shishak at 12:9.
2 Chronicles 9:15
“And King Solomon made two hundred targets of beaten gold - For a more correct valuation of these targets and shields than that in 1Ki 10:17 (note), see at the end of the chapter.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 9:15
“Comparing 1Ki 10:16-17, it follows from the two passages together that the “pound of gold” was equal to 100 shekels.”
three hundred small shields: Solomon kept the small shields in his House of the Forest of Lebanon, where verse 20 places vessels of pure gold as well. Each held half the gold of a large shield. Rehoboam kept their bronze replacements in a guardroom, which Jamieson, Fausset and Brown describe at 12:10.
2 Chronicles 9:17-19
a great throne of ivory: The throne joins ivory and gold, six steps, a footstool of gold, and twelve lions on the steps, matching 1 Kings 10:18-20 detail for detail. The verse's own comment is that “Nothing like this had ever been made for any kingdom”.
2 Chronicles 9:17
“There was not the like in any kingdom. The lustre wherein he appeared was typical of the spiritual glory of the kingdom of the Messiah and but a faint representation of his throne, which is above every throne.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
a footstool of gold: Barnes notes that the footstool is absent from 1 Kings 10. He calls it a standard part of an Eastern throne in the sculpture of Egypt, Assyria and Persia. Here it is gold and attached to the throne.
2 Chronicles 9:18
“The footstool (not mentioned in Kings) was an essential appendage to an Oriental throne; it appears everywhere in the Egyptian, Assyrian, and Persian sculptures.”
Twelve lions stood on the six steps: Two lions stood at each of the six steps, twelve in all, with two more beside the armrests. Henry takes the line, that no kingdom had anything like it, as a type of the throne of the Messiah above every throne. Henry calls Solomon's lustre a faint picture of it.
2 Chronicles 9:20-21
drinking cups were gold: Gold replaces silver so completely in daily use that silver “was accounted as nothing in the days of Solomon”. The ships of Tarshish arrive once every three years “bearing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks”. The Hebrew words behind apes and peacocks are foreign loanwords.
Hiram's servants sail with the ships of Tarshish again, as at 8:18. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown take ships of Tarshish as ships of the size and build used at Tarshish, citing Calmet. Clarke reports that the Targum sends the ships to Africa.
2 Chronicles 9:21
“The king’s ships went to Tarshish - “Went to Africa.” - Targum.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The fame of Solomon, and the end of his forty years
2 Chronicles 9:22-25
surpassed all the kings of the earth: Solomon “surpassed all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom,” and the kings of the earth seek an audience. Kings tells the same scene at 1 Kings 10:23-25. Verse 25 counts “4,000 stalls for horses and chariots” and 12,000 horses.
All the kings of the earth: Barnes reads the kings of the earth as the kings of the land, the rulers inside Solomon's own empire, citing 1 Kings 4:21. Henry sets their eagerness against the neglect of Christ, in whom all the treasures of wisdom are hidden. The wisdom came from God.
2 Chronicles 9:23
“The application which they then made to Solomon to hear his wisdom will aggravate, shame, and condemn, men's general contempt of Christ and his gospel. Though in them are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, yet none of the princes of this world desire to know them, for they are foolishness to them, 1 Cor. ii.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 9:23
“All the kings of the earth - Rather, “all the kings of the land:” all the monarchs, that is, whose dominions were included in So omon’s empire (see 1Ki 4:21).”
each visitor would bring his tribute: Year by year the kings of verse 23 brought gifts. Henry says they came because they coveted Solomon's friendship, and he reads Solomon here as a type of Christ. The wise men of the east brought gold, frankincense and myrrh to Christ as soon as he was born.
4,000 stalls for horses: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown report a suggestion from Gesenius that the Hebrew word for stalls can also mean the teams of horses that fill them. Clarke adds that the Targum reads four hundred here. The chariot cities are those listed at 8:6.
2 Chronicles 9:25
“Solomon had four thousand stalls--It has been conjectured [GESENIUS, Hebrew Lexicon] that the original term may signify not only stall or stable, but a number of horses occupying the same number of stalls.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 9:25
“Four thousand stalls for horses - See the note on 1Ki 4:26, where the different numbers in these two books are considered. The Targum, instead of four thousand, has ארבע מאה arba meah, four hundred.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Chronicles 9:26-28
He reigned over all the kings from the Euphrates: Silver is “as common in Jerusalem as stones,” and horses come “from Egypt and from all the lands”. In 1 Kings the notice of horses from Egypt stands near the account of Solomon's fall. Chronicles carries the notice and tells no fall.
silver as common in Jerusalem: The same point stands at verse 20, where silver counted for nothing in the days of Solomon. Cedar became as plentiful as sycamore. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown judge that Solomon carried the Hebrew kingdom to its highest pitch of worldly glory.
imported from Egypt and from all: Kings gives only Egypt. Barnes marks the words from all the lands as the Chronicler's addition, and names Arabia, famous for its breed, and Armenia. He finds Armenia at Ezekiel 27:14 trading horses at the fairs of Tyre.
2 Chronicles 9:28
“And out of all lands - An addition to the words in Kings. The principal countries would no doubt be Arabia and Armenia - the former always famous for its excellent breed; the latter mentioned in Ezekiel Eze 27:14 as trading with horses in the fairs of Tyre.”
the Visions of Iddo the Seer: The Chronicler closes the reign by naming his sources by title. He cites Records of Nathan the Prophet, the Prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and “the Visions of Iddo the Seer concerning Jeroboam son of Nebat”.
2 Chronicles 9:29
“The book of Nathan ... - On the “books” here mentioned, see the introduction to Chronicles, the second note. We hear nothing of Iddo in Kings: but he is mentioned below twice 2Ch 12:15; 2Ch 13:22. In the latter of these passages he is called not “the seer,” but “the prophet.” He seems to have been the author of three works: (1) Visions against Jeroboam; (2) A book of genealogies; and (3) A commentary or history. According to some, he was identical with Oded, the father of Azariah, who prophesied in the reign of Asa (see the 2Ch 15:1 note).”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 9:29
“His sin is not again recorded, because it was repented of, and pardoned, and became as if it had never been. Scripture-silence sometimes speaks. I am willing to believe that its silence here concerning the sin of Solomon is an intimation that none of the sins he committed were mentioned against him, Ezek. xxxiii.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Chronicles 9:30-31
reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel: After forty years Solomon “rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of his father David,” and Rehoboam reigns in his place. Kings gives Solomon's foreign wives, his heart turned after other gods, the LORD's anger and the tearing of the kingdom. Chronicles tells none of it.
Solomon rested with his fathers: Wesley sets Solomon first on his throne and then in his grave, and the throne gave him no shelter from it. The heir was Rehoboam, a son Wesley calls a fool. Henry reads the silence over his sins as a sign of pardon.
2 Chronicles 9:31
“And Solomon slept - We have here Solomon in his throne, and Solomon in his grave; for the throne could not secure him from the grave. Here is he stripped of his pomp, and leaving all his wealth and power, not to one whom he knew not whether he would be a wise man or a fool; but one he knew would be a fool! This was not only vanity, but vexation of spirit.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: The closing panel of the reign, a state visit followed by a summary of wealth and a death notice, as Keil and Delitzsch classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| What the queen was shown | Verses 3 and 4 list what overwhelmed her, and the list is a working court rather than one marvel. The wisdom, the house, the food of the table, the seating of the servants, the attending ministers and their clothing, the cupbearers, and the king's own ascent to the house of the LORD. The site's exposition note marks the ascent to the temple as the item a reader could pass over, and it stands last.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 2 Chronicles 9:3. | 2 Chronicles 9:3, 2 Chronicles 9:4 |
| The queen's own speech | Verses 5 to 8 are the only extended speech in the chapter, and a foreign ruler makes it. She states that the report fell short, blesses the men of the court, and then blesses the God who set Solomon on his throne to be king for the LORD his God. Matthew Henry traces both the king's happiness and the kingdom's to the same source in that blessing. The wording leans on the doctrine this book states at 1 Chronicles 28:5 and 29:23, that the throne is the throne of the LORD.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 2 Chronicles 9:7. | 2 Chronicles 9:5, 2 Chronicles 9:6, 2 Chronicles 9:7, 2 Chronicles 9:8 |
| The chariots and the silver, counted again | Verses 25 to 28 repeat the catalogue of 1:14 to 17 close to word for word. The stalls for horses and chariots stand there again, with the reach from the Euphrates to the Philistine border and Egypt, silver as common as stones and cedar as common as sycamore. The reign is framed at both ends by the same figures. The site's exposition note on 1:14 and 1:15 records the near identity of the two lists.Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, on 2 Chronicles 9:25. | 2 Chronicles 9:25, 2 Chronicles 9:26, 2 Chronicles 9:27, 2 Chronicles 9:28 |
Where the chapter stands in the book
11 more paragraphs on the patterns
This chapter closes the wide Solomon panel, 1:1 to 9:31, and the division of the kingdom follows in chapter 10. In the proposed ring the dossier carries, the queen's visit at 8:1 to 9:12 answers the gathering of Huram's workforce at 2:1 to 18. The wealth of 9:13 to 28 answers the wealth of 1:1 to 17. The ring is Raymond B. Dillard's, its status is proposed, and it is drawn in full on the study page for chapter 7.
The historical value
Sheba lay in southern Arabia, and the visit belongs to the incense and spice trade that ran north from there. Ophir supplies the gold of verse 10, and the ships of Tarshish sail on a three year cycle at verse 21, bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes and peacocks.
The site's exposition note records that the words behind apes and peacocks are foreign loanwords, which the older commentators take as evidence of a voyage reaching well past the Mediterranean lanes. The annual intake at verse 13 is six hundred and sixty six talents of gold, and the shields made from it are carried off by Shishak within five years of Solomon's death at 12:9.
The debated concept
The stalls of verse 25 are the chapter's textual question. This book gives four thousand stalls for horses and chariots and 1 Kings 4:26 gives forty thousand. The site's exposition note records that the older commentators weigh the difference as a copying variant between the two records rather than as two counts of one stable.
The larger question is the silence. 1 Kings gives Solomon's foreign wives, his heart turned after other gods and the tearing of the kingdom. This book closes the reign on the queen's gold and the ivory throne. The study guide reads the omission as a literary choice made on purpose, an unclouded ideal for a rebuilding people to look back toward. Matthew Henry reads the silence over Solomon's sin as an intimation that what is not repeated is not held against him. The site's exposition note states the method plainly, that this book selects toward the temple, the throne of the LORD and the line that carries the promise.
Verse 29 belongs to the same question. The writer names the book of Nathan, the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite and the visions of Iddo the seer against Jeroboam son of Nebat. Jeroboam is named there and his story is never told in this book, so the citation stands with no narrative attached to it.
The New Testament and the later record
Jesus names this queen. At Matthew 12:42 and Luke 11:31 the queen of the south comes from the ends of the earth to hear Solomon's wisdom and rises in judgment against a generation that refuses one greater than Solomon. The site's exposition note carries the citation on verses 1 and 2.
Matthew Henry reads the ivory throne as a faint likeness of the throne of Christ, and the site's exposition note states that this is the church's typology rather than the claim of the verse. The twelve lions on the steps stand over Israel's twelve tribes.
Keep studying
Studies1
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, 1832 to 1869, on 2 Chronicles 9:29; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Books of the Chronicles, on 2 Chronicles 9:30; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 2 Chronicles 9:9 and Raymond B. Dillard, 2 Chronicles, Word Biblical Commentary, 1987.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil, The Books of the Chronicles; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and W. H. Bennett, The Books of Chronicles (Expositor's Bible).