2 Chronicleschapter 9
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Speaks with:1 Kings 10×132 Chronicles 1×42 Chronicles 9×31 Kings 4×31 Kings 11×3Psalms 72×5
Summary
Chapter summary
The queen of Sheba comes with hard questions and a great train of spices and gold, and finds nothing hid from Solomon; seeing his house, his table, and his ascent to the house of Jehovah, 'there was no more spirit in her.' Her verdict: 'the half of the greatness of thy wisdom was not told me,' and blessed be Jehovah thy God, who delighted in thee. Then the glory piles up: six hundred and sixty-six talents of gold in a year, the great ivory throne with twelve lions on six steps, silver counted as nothing. He reigns forty years and dies. Jesus later stands in that shadow and says a greater than Solomon is here (Matthew 12:42).
Context
History · Ezra — 2 Chronicles overview
- A. 1–12 The queen of Sheba: the half was not told me
- B. 13–21 Six hundred sixty-six talents, and silver counted as nothing
- C. 22–31 The fame of Solomon, and the end of his forty years
The outline
A.The queen of Sheba: the half was not told mevv. 1 to 12
Read vv. 1 to 12 →B.Six hundred sixty-six talents, and silver counted as nothingvv. 13 to 21
Read vv. 13 to 21 →C.The fame of Solomon, and the end of his forty yearsvv. 22 to 31
Read vv. 22 to 31 →
The world behind this chapter
2 Chronicles 9The history
Sheba lay in southwest Arabia, in the region of modern Yemen, and it grew rich on frankincense and myrrh — resins harvested from trees that grow almost nowhere else and were burned by the ton in temples from Egypt to Babylon. The caravan road north ran fifteen hundred miles, and every kingdom along it taxed the traffic. A queen of Sheba visiting the king who controlled the northern end of that road was doing business as well as asking questions.
Her gifts fit the trade exactly: a hundred and twenty talents of gold, a very great quantity of spices, and precious stones. 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 coming in yearly, a great ivory throne overlaid with gold with six steps and twelve lions, gold shields hung in the House of the Forest of Lebanon, and drinking vessels of 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, ocean-capable vessel. The last item in the cargo list is uncertain in the Hebrew and may be baboons rather than peacocks; either way it is exotic African and Indian Ocean freight.
What it meant to them
What the queen says at the height of the visit is the point the writer wants kept: blessed be the LORD your God, who delighted in you to set you on his throne to be king for the LORD your God. She credits the God, not the man.
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.
Sources cited
- K. A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on 2 Chronicles 9. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.