II. THAT DIFFICULTIES AND DANGERS SHOULD NOT KEEP US FROM THE RECEPTION OF TRUTH.

III. THAT AS WE SHOULD DILIGENTLY, AND IN SPITE OF ALL DIFFICULTIES, SEEK DIVINE TRUTH, SO SHOULD WE ADMIRE IT WHEN WE HAVE FOUND IT. The Queen of Sheba does not attempt enviously to find fault with or to depreciate any of the endowments of King Solomon. She admires heartily his wisdom, his knowledge, his power, his riches, his grandeur. A useful example for the present age — an age especially given to criticise, rather than to admire; an age that laughs at romance, ignores mystery, and ridicules the idea of the supernatural. We know that romance and reality ,are one, that life is itself a mystery, and that without the supernatural there could not be any natural. The credulity of early ages may have been excessive; but it was likely to be productive of more noble deeds than the scepticism and indifference of to-day.

IV. THAT IN MATTERS THAT CONCERN OUR ETERNAL WELFARE IT BEHOVES US TO ACT ON EVIDENCE A LITTLE LESS THAN CERTAINTY. It has sometimes been objected to the Christian creed, that if God had sent it as revelation of His will to man, it ought to have been universally diffused and supported by irrefragable evidence. This argument, however, if carried out to its logical consequence, would go to prove that God ought to have dispensed with the necessity of a revelation to man at all, either by keeping him free from sin, or by supplying him with such an additional faculty as would have enabled him to intuitively grasp spiritual truths. All these suggestions, however, are the presumptions of ignorance. God chose to act in His dealings with men in a certain way; and what is man, that he should question the ways of God?

V. THAT THOSE WHO ARE IN THE PRESENCE OF PERFECT WISDOM MUST BE HAPPY. "Happy," says the Queen of Sheba, "are thy men, happy are these thy servants, which stand continually before thee, and that hear thy wisdom." With God is wisdom; and those therefore who, whether on earth or in heaven, feel themselves to be perpetually in His presence or watched over by His care, are indeed truly happy.

VI. THAT AS THE POSSESSION OF THE WISDOM THAT IS FROM ABOVE CAN ALONE MAKE US TRULY HAPPY, WE OUGHT TO BE PREPARED FOR IT TO OFFER THE BEST GIFTS THAT WE HAVE. The Queen of Sheba pours forth before Solomon her most valuable presents. The best of our life, of our labour, of our talents, of our riches, should we give to God, for from Him we obtained all that we have, and all our blessings we hold at His will.

VII. THAT THE POSSESSION OF HEAVENLY WISDOM, WHICH IS THE TRUE RICHES, MORE THAN COMPENSATES FOR THE LOSS OF ANY UNRIGHTEOUS MAMMON. Not merely is the man who has reached to the appreciation and enjoyment of Divine truth happy, he is also rich — rich in treasures that moth and rust cannot corrupt and that thieves cannot break through to steal.

(R. Young, M. A.)

1. But our duty is plainly taught us by this queen's example. We shall never know more of Him unless we go and see; and, if we are sensible women, that is exactly what we shall do. We need have no more fear than had this queen as to the reception that awaits us. Indeed, we know beforehand. We are not told that an invitation was sent from Judaea to Sheba, but Christ has most distinctly and pressingly invited us. "Come unto Me, and I will give you rest," is the message which He has forwarded to us. Nay, He has done more, much more than this. He has not waited for us to go to Him, but He has come to us. "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." This is our opportunity. Shall we let it go, or shall we thankfully avail ourselves of it? Oh, my sisters, do not let this Queen of the South rise up in judgment against you and condemn you, but be equally resolute in mind and prompt in action, and at once come to Jesus.

2. When we have taken this first decided step we may follow the queen's example in another particular. "When she was come to Solomon she communed with him of all that was in her heart." And we may do the same when we have come to our King. Let us make the most of our privileges. Why are any of us weak and miserable, and full of sin, seeing that Jesus is able to make us — even us — great and good, useful and happy?

3. But when we have proved Him to, be all that we have heard, let us be honest and say so.

4. But neither He nor ourselves need be satisfied with words. There must be a mutual exchange of gifts. Who can describe the greatness of His royal bounty?

The love of Jesus, what it is

None but His loved ones know.

Nor can any one beside tell the precious things which He gives to His beloved.

5. There is yet one other particular in which we are like the Queen of Sheba. "She turned, and went to her own country;" and we have to go back to the world after seeing our King, and to dwell among our own people. But we ought to be very much better than when we first came to Him.

(Marianne Farningham.)

I. THE VISITED KING. On every side were untold accumulations of wealth. The country was at peace, with a dominion extending from Thapsacus, on the Euphrates, to Gaza, on the Mediterranean. The king's popularity was unbounded. He listened equally to the meanest of his subjects and those of courtly bearing, and gave judgment to each in accordance with that skill which was his without measure.

II. THE VISITING QUEEN. Her lineage is not certain, nor the exact place of her sway. Probably she was a descendant from Abraham by Keturah, with a kingdom occupying the greater part of Arabia Felix, between the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. This Sabean kingdom, whose capital was Sheba, was the richest among the Arabians, and would naturally be visited by the fleets of Solomon.

III. THE VISIT.

1. Its motive. It is not difficult to find reasons prompting the Sabean queen with desire to stand in such a presence. It were easy to imagine her as urged by curiosity or by thoughts of rivalry. Hers was an empire of exceeding richness. Did the king's really surpass it? She could bear presents to him indicating resources vast and varied. Could he lay at her feet those denoting wider imports or an ampler revenue? Doubtless, however, worthier reasons moved her. Could he solve the deep, perplexing problems of her soul? Hers was a deeper want, a profounder longing. Like the patriarch Job, her soul was stirred with profoundest questions of life, death, and immortality.

II. THE VISIT'S DISCLOSURE.

III. THE VISIT'S RESULT. Among the lessons suggested by the passage, note —

1. Wealth and piety are not necessarily opposed. The time of this visit marks the climax of Israel's strength and prosperity. Never before and never after did the kingdom take its place among the great monarchies of the East, able to cope with Egypt and Assyria. To-day as never before the duty of the Church is to make wealth the handmaid of religion.

2. Nothing but God satisfies. Neither the wealth of her own realm nor the glory of Solomon's could satisfy the queen. In her heart was a void which nothing but the knowledge of God could fill. 's words are ever true, "Thou, O Lord, madest us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they repose on Thee."

3. There is no safety but in a right heart. It is sad that to one like Solomon a decline should come. This favoured ruler fell because he was unfaithful to Him who had made him both wise and prosperous. His life departed from what his lips proclaimed. There is always danger when obedience to God keeps not pace with knowledge of God; when the head has more understanding than the heart has love. "Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life."

(Monday Club Sermons.)

II. THE HERO OF THE TALE. It is somewhat curious that, although we have a fuller account of Solomon's reign than of that of any other monarch mentioned in Scripture, we know comparatively little about himself. His personality stands by no means clearly out in relief against his time. The very blaze of his magnificence dazzles the eye and obscures the vision. His reign has been called the "Augustan Age of the Jewish nation." Dean Stanley, with characteristic felicity, calls attention to the fact, that "Solomon was not only its Augustus but its Aristotle." Might he not have added, "and its Alexander and its Timon, too!" But as he is at the point of time of which we now treat, he is in the full sheen of his noonday glory, with no forecast of the clouds of the sunset. To him thus, and to his capital which his genius and his wealth have made to be "the joy of the whole earth," a visitor comes. And so we reach —

III. THE HEROINE OF THE TALE. Like her royal host, she, too, can be but vaguely seen. Her very name is unknown. She has a title given but no name; she is a queen, and as a queen rather than as a woman can she be known by us. And yet the motive of her visit is essentially feminine. It is curiosity, alike of the higher and the lower kind combined. And not only was the motive thoroughly feminine; it was also characteristically national. For, though tradition assigns her a different origin, there can be little doubt she was an Arab, and the Arabs are, of all peoples, notoriously the most addicted to gossip and curiosity. The tradition to which I have referred represents her as queen of that city, on an island in the Nile, which, for so many centuries, either as tributary to Egypt or as independent, was one of the mighty cities of the ancient world, Meroe. Thus influenced in her mind — excited on the lower side by the lower curiosity and on the higher side by the higher, uniting and elevating the natural curiosity with the spiritual aspiration — the plan of a personal visit and the establishment of a personal friendship and communion takes shape and grows within her, till it becomes an imperative and mastering demand. It is a meeting most picturesque and full of interest — the heathen queen in the presence of Jehovah's anointed king; natural piety seeking revelation's light. As the motives which brought her to Jerusalem were of two orders, of a higher and a lower level, so would be the subjects on which they "communed" when they met. The Arab traditions, preserving the materials that were akin to Arab tastes, are full of stories of quaint enigmas and riddles propounded and of ingenious answers given, such as those in which the sportive fancy of the East has always delighted, and by which Solomon and Hiram had long corresponded, had stimulated their intellectual activities and relieved their cares of state. The queen, according to these traditions, tested the royal wit and ingenuity by such devices as the following: artificial and natural flowers to be recognised and marked by the use of sight alone; boys and girls, dressed alike, to be detected and distinguished; and a cup to be filled with water from neither earth nor cloud. Solomon read the first riddle by letting bees loose upon the flowers; the second, by setting the young people to wash their hands; and the third, by causing a slave to gallop furiously upon a wild horse and filling the cup from the flowing perspiration! In such playful manoeuvres the wit of the one was exercised and the curiosity of the other was satisfied. But we cannot doubt but that these were the relaxations not the substance. of their communion, the relief not the satisfaction of the spirit of the Sabsean queen. But all the same we must conclude that the higher subjects that were, in measure, congenial to the better nature of both obtained a place in their fellowship, and that in the queen the king secured not only an ardent admirer of himself but a devout worshipper of his God, a reverent pupil in religion as well as a fascinated partaker in trifling. And so she passes off the Jerusalem stage, out of sight, and we see her no more. The traditions which tell of her marriage with Solomon, and of the three months which he spent with her every year at Saba, and of her burial at Tadmor, are utterly worthless. She lingers and figures in these legends, but they are void of credit and value.

(G. M. Grant, B. D.)

II. SCEPTICS MIGHT AS WELL PAUSE IN UTTERING THEIR DECISIONS OF PERSONAL REJECTION OF CHRIST TILL THEY HAVE FULLY UNDERSTOOD HIM. It is not every one that is competent even to disbelieve. It requires much thought to dispose of Christianity thoroughly. It is a system that stands very determinately upon conduct; and it insists that, before any intelligent investigator shall come to a fixed conclusion, he shall follow up what he already knows by working it into his life. And then he will, quite possibly, be surprised by further disclosures which he did not previously suspect. There is a great pertinence just here in the splendid figure of the traveller Humboldt; he says: "At the limits of exact knowledge, as from a lofty island shore, one's eye loves to glance towards the distant regions. The images that it sees may be illusive; but, like the illusive images that people imagined they had seen from the Canaries, or the Azores, long before the time of Columbus, these may also lead to the discovery of a new world." There is no field of study of which this remark is truer than that which religious investigation offers.

III. RELIGIOUS INQUIRERS SHOULD NOT HESITATE IN COMING TO JESUS CHRIST FOR A SATISFYING ANSWER TO ALL THE SOUL PERPLEXITIES WHICH BESET THEM. If there were only the revelations of God in nature for a direction and a comfort, there would be no small gain over what the heathen have in their poems and dreams; for what would come to us would be at least trustworthy, because it would be true. The best minds have often found solace in the mute world around them. Chaucer used to say that walking in the meadows, at dawn of day, to see the blossoms spread against the sun, was a blissful sight which softened all his sorrows. Henry Martyn, lonely and sad, in his far-away mission-field, exclaimed, "Even a leaf is good company." And Ruskin writes in his essay: "What a fine thought that was, when God Almighty earliest thought of a tree!" Even with this for our Bible, our Lord would excel Ecclesiastes: "Consider the lilies," etc. But the living Word and the written Word are better for a man, immortal and sensitively intelligent, than all this friendly communing with nature only, for he is pondering questions in his heart.

(C. S. Robinson, D. D.)

(Helps to Speakers.)

1. She wanted to prove whether he was as wise as she had been led to believe, and her mode of proving it was by endeavouring to learn from him; and if you want to ascertain what the wisdom of Christ is, the way to know it is to come and sit at His feet, and learn of Him. He has Himself said, "Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls."

2. The Queen of Sheba is also to be admired in that, wishing to learn from Solomon, she asked him many questions; — not simply one or two, but many. If you want to know the wisdom of Christ, you must ask Him many questions.

3. The Queen of Sheba proved Solomon "with hard questions."

II. LET US IMITATE HER EXAMPLE, IN REFERENCE TO CHRIST, WHO IS "GREATER THAN SOLOMON." Let us prove Him with hard questions.

1. Here is the first hard question. How can a man be just with God?

2. Here is another hard question: How can God be just, and yet the Justifier of the ungodly?

3. The next question is one which has puzzled many: How can a man be saved by faith alone without works, and yet no man can be saved by a faith that is without works?

4. Here is another hard question: How can a man be born when he is old? At first sight, it seems as if that were unanswerable; but Jesus Christ has said, "Behold, I make all things new."

5. Here is another hard question: How can God, who sees all things, no longer see any sin in believers? That is a puzzle which many cannot understand.

6. Here is another hard question: How can a man see the invisible God? Yet Christ said, "Blessed are the pure in heart" for they shall see God; "and the angel said to John:" His servants shall serve Him, and they shall see His face."

7. Moving upward in Christian experience, here is another hard question: How can it be true that "whosoever is born of God sinneth not," yet men who are born of God do sin?

8. This helps also to answer another hard question: How can a man be a new man, and yet be constantly sighing because he finds in himself so much of the old man?

9. Here is one more of these hard questions: How can a man be sorrowful, yet always rejoicing?

10. I have one more hard question: How can a man's life be in heaven while he still lives on earth?

III. LET US ANSWER CERTAIN QUESTIONS OF A PRACTICAL CHARACTER.

1. Answer first, this question — How can we come to Christ?

2. "Well," says one, "supposing that is done, how can we ask Christ hard questions?" You may ask anything of Him just the same as if you could see Him.

3. "But," you say, "if I ask of Him, how will He answer me?" Do not expect that He will answer you in a dream, or by any vocal sound. He has spoken all you need to know in this Book.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

(E. J. Hardy, M. A.)

(Homiletic Review.)

(Cynddylon Jones.)

     3050   Holy Spirit, wisdom
     5857   fame
     7949   mission, of Israel

1 Kings 10:1-2

     4466   herbs and spices
     5976   visiting

1 Kings 10:1-3

     7730   explanation

1 Kings 10:1-5

     7240   Jerusalem, history

1 Kings 10:1-9

     5345   influence

1 Kings 10:1-10

     5487   queen
     5849   exaltation

1 Kings 10:1-13

     5745   women

A Royal Seeker after Wisdom
'And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to prove him with hard questions. 2. And she came to Jerusalem with a very great train, with camels that bare spices, and very much gold, and precious stones: and when she was come to Solomon, she communed with him of all that was in her heart. 3. And Solomon told her all her questions: there was not any thing hid from the king, which he told her not. 4. And when the queen of Sheba had seen all Solomon's …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Gift
"There came no more such abundance of spices as those which the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon."--1 Kings x. 10. Mechthild of Hellfde, 1277. tr., Emma Frances Bevan, 1899 "What dost thou bring me, O my Queen? Love maketh thy steps to fly." Lord, to Thee my jewel I bring, Greater than mountains high; Broader than all the earth's broad lands, Heavier than the ocean sands, And higher it is than the sky: Deeper it is than the depths of the sea, And fairer than the sun, Unreckoned, as if the stars …
Frances Bevan—Hymns of Ter Steegen and Others (Second Series)

Of the Weight of Government; and that all Manner of Adversity is to be Despised, and Prosperity Feared.
So much, then, have we briefly said, to shew how great is the weight of government, lest whosoever is unequal to sacred offices of government should dare to profane them, and through lust of pre-eminence undertake a leadership of perdition. For hence it is that James affectionately deters us, saying, Be not made many masters, my brethren (James iii. 1). Hence the Mediator between God and man Himself--He who, transcending the knowledge and understanding even of supernal spirits, reigns in heaven …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

Meditations of the Blessed State of the Regenerate Man after Death.
This estate has three degrees:--1st, From the day of death to the resurrection; 2d, From the resurrection to the pronouncing of the sentence; 3d, After the sentence, which lasts eternally. As soon as ever the regenerate man hath yielded up his soul to Christ, the holy angels take her into their custody, and immediately carry her into heaven (Luke xvi. 22), and there present her before Christ, where she is crowned with a crown of righteousness and glory; not which she hath deserved by her good works, …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

There is a Blessedness in Reversion
Blessed are the poor in spirit. Matthew 5:3 Having done with the occasion, I come now to the sermon itself. Blessed are the poor in spirit'. Christ does not begin his Sermon on the Mount as the Law was delivered on the mount, with commands and threatenings, the trumpet sounding, the fire flaming, the earth quaking, and the hearts of the Israelites too for fear; but our Saviour (whose lips dropped as the honeycomb') begins with promises and blessings. So sweet and ravishing was the doctrine of this …
Thomas Watson—The Beatitudes: An Exposition of Matthew 5:1-12

Commerce
The remarkable change which we have noticed in the views of Jewish authorities, from contempt to almost affectation of manual labour, could certainly not have been arbitrary. But as we fail to discover here any religious motive, we can only account for it on the score of altered political and social circumstances. So long as the people were, at least nominally, independent, and in possession of their own land, constant engagement in a trade would probably mark an inferior social stage, and imply …
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life

The Fact of the Redeemer's Return was Typified in the Lives of Joseph and Solomon.
In the Old Testament there are numerous references to the Second Coming of Christ, references both direct and typical, but in every instance it was His return to the earth which was in view. The secret coming of Christ into the air, to catch up the saints to Himself, was an event quite unknown to the Old Testament prophets, an event kept secret until revealed by God to the apostle Paul who, when writing to the Corinthians upon this particular aspect of our subject, said, "Behold, I show you a mystery …
Arthur W. Pink—The Redeemer's Return

"Let any Man Come. "
[7] "In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water."--John 7:37-38. THE text which heads this paper contains one of those mighty sayings of Christ which deserve to be printed in letters of gold. All the stars in heaven are bright and beautiful; yet even a child can see that "one star differeth from another in glory" …
John Charles Ryle—The Upper Room: Being a Few Truths for the Times

Kings
The book[1] of Kings is strikingly unlike any modern historical narrative. Its comparative brevity, its curious perspective, and-with some brilliant exceptions--its relative monotony, are obvious to the most cursory perusal, and to understand these things is, in large measure, to understand the book. It covers a period of no less than four centuries. Beginning with the death of David and the accession of Solomon (1 Kings i., ii.) it traverses his reign with considerable fulness (1 Kings iii.-xi.), …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament