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Who is Solomon? The name of Solomon (Sol-Om-On) means Sun, as well as peace. Born to King David and Bathsheba, Solomon grew up in a polygamous home, for David had 18 wives. Early in his 39-year reign as king, which began in 961 B.C., Solomon married the daughter of the Egyptian pharoah, whose dowry included 1000 musical instruments, and 80,000 Egyptian builders. The marriage may have been a political affair, for Solomon sought the architectural skills of the Egyptians. Later, Solomon took hundreds of wives and concubines. Many historians believe that he did not become polygamous until after his meeting with Sheba, early in his reign.
Israel during the time of Solomon was a unified kingdom of 30,000 square miles -- a small but respected power existing peacefully between Assyria and Egypt. Because Solomon was talented in international diplomacy, he negotiated trading agreements with neighboring kings, most notably the Phoenician king, Hiram of Tyre. As a result, his large fleet was built and manned by Phoenicians, and capable of sailing from Esyon-Geber or Eilat on the Red Sea to Ophir, Sheba, and India. Solomon was (at least initially) a capable administrator, who raised the vast wealth required for his many projects by consolidating his central government and taxing the twelve districts of his kingdom, each which supported his court for one month each year. Later in his reign, his reliance upon heavy taxation, forced labor and slavery led to revolt.
In order to build his Palace and Temple, Solomon sent 10,000 workers a month to Lebanon to fell and transport over land and sea the 120-foot feet high cedars of Lebanon. His great temple, built by Phoenician craftsmen, consisted of three large rooms of richly carved cedar, cypress and marble, with a huge bronze altar and bronze columns 40 feet high, hauled up to Jerusalem from the Jordan valley. Although costly, the Temple was a source of national pride and unity.
Solomon's commitment to building the Temple reflected not only his love of magnificent architecture, but also his piety. Early in his reign, he dedicated himself to God. When God asked him what he most wanted, instead of choosing riches or power, he said, "Give thy servant therefore an understanding heart to judge Thy people, that I may discern between good and evil." (11) Pleased at his request, God rewarded him not only with wisdom, but also honor and wealth. "So King Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom. And all the earth sought the presence to Solomon, to hear his wisdom, which God had put in his heart."(12)
Over 3000 proverbs have been attributed to Solomon, as well as 1005 psalms, the book of Ecclesiastes and in the Christian Apocrypha, The Wisdom of Solomon. In this book, Solomon speaks of wisdom in a voice reminiscent of Makeda:
According to Islamic tradition, Solomon was able to converse freely with animals and birds, understanding their languages. Because of his wisdom and the grace and favor with which God endowed him, was able to converse with the spirits of the underworld who Solomon used as servants. The Moslem historian al-Siuti gives the following mythical description of how Solomon built the Temple:
A Meeting of Minds
Although an Ethiopian tale portrays Sheba and her prime minister dressed in man's clothes as they meet Solomon, most accounts describe her arriving bejewelled and draped in dazzling robes. Immediately, Solomon gave her a luxurious apartment in a palace next to his, and provided her with fruits, rose trees, silks, linens, tapestries, and 11 bewitching garments for each day of her visit. Daily, he sent her (and her 350 servants) 45 sacks of flour, 10 oxen, 5 bulls, 50 sheep (in addition to goats, deer, cows, gazelles, and chicken), wine, honey, fried locusts, rich sweets, and 25 singing men and women.
Although impressed by Solomon's wealth, Sheba was more interested in his wisdom. Some scholars suggest that her visit was also economically and politically motivated, "the conclusion of a trade agreement governing both land and sea routes, rather than a meeting of mutual admiration."(15) But she came, according to the Kebra Negast, to learn from him, and according to the Bible, "to prove him with hard questions." (16)
What were these "hard questions?" Theologians throughout the ages have speculated on their nature, believing them to pertain to: peace and war, the meaning of life, evil, secrets of death and immortality, the relationship between spirit and body, sexuality, male/female differences, the role of women, the reliability of paternity as a basis for an economic system, the cycles of the moon and tides, and the name and nature of God. Whatever the questions, most sources refer to lengthy discussions occurring between Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.
"What is it? An enclosure with ten doors; when one is open, nine are shut, and when nine are open, one is shut," Sheba asked Solomon. Solomon answered, "The enclosure is the womb, and the ten doors are the ten orifices of man, namely his eyes, his ears, his nostrils, his mouth, the apertures for discharge of excreta and urine, and the navel. When the child is still in its mother's womb, the navel is open, but all the other apertures are shut, but when the child issues from the womb the navel is closed and the other orifices are open." (18)
In another riddle pertaining to the body, Sheba posed to Solomon, "Seven leave and nine enter; two pour out the draught and only one drinks." How did Solomon respond? "Seven are the days of woman's menstruation, nine the months of her pregnancy; her two breasts nourish the child, and one drinks." (19)
Other riddles concerned with common objects and materials. At one point, Sheba asked, "What when alive does not move, yet when its head cut off, moves?" Solomon's answer: "the timber used to build a ship." (20) Another riddle she proposed was: "It is many- headed. In a storm at sea it goes above us all, it raises a loud and bitter wailing and moaning; it bends its head like a reed, is the glory of the rich and the shame of the poor, it honors the dead and dishonors the living; it is a delight to the birds, but a sorrow to the fishes. What is it?" Solomon replied, "Flax, for it makes sails for ships that moan in the storm. It provides fine linen for the rich and rags for the poor, a burial shroud for the dead, and a rope for hanging the living. As seed it nourishes the birds, and as a net it traps the fish." (21)
Some of Sheba's questions were related to the Hebrew Bible. For example, "The dead lived, the grave moved, and the dead prayed. What is it?" The answer: "The dead that lived and prayed was Jonah; the fish, the moving grave." (22) In one theological riddle, she asked: "What is the ugliest thing in the world, and what is the most beautiful? What is the most certain, and what is the most uncertain?" Solomon replied, "The ugliest thing...is the faithful turning unfaithful; the most beautiful is the repentant sinner. The most certain is death; the most uncertain, one's share in the World to Come." (23)
The Midrash Hachefez reports still another test of Solomon's cleverness. Sheba presented Solomon with the sawn trunk of a cedar tree, the ends cut off so that they looked the same; she asked Solomon which end had been the root, and which the branches. Solomon ordered the tree stump to be placed in water. When one end sank while the other floated, he said to her, "The part which sank was the root, and that which floated on the surface was the end containing the branches."
According to the Kebra Negast, the questions and tests were mutual; Solomon also challenged Sheba. Determined to discover if the stories of her deformed foot were true, he arranged for a stream of water to flow onto the glass beside his throne (in the Qu'ran, he had running water with fish swimming about it under clear glass), so that Sheba would lift her skirts as she approached him. When she did so, he noted the hair on her legs, and told her, "Thy beauty is the beauty of a woman, but they hair is masculine; hair is an ornament to a man, but it disfigures a woman." He then invented a depilatory in order to acquaint her with his conceptions of womanhood.(24)
During Sheba's six month visit with Solomon, she conversed with him daily. The Kebra Negast informs us that "the Queen used to go to Solomon and return continually, and hearken unto his wisdom, and keep it in her heart. And Solomon used to go and visit her, and answer all the questions which she put to him... and he informed her concerning every matter that she wished to enquire about." (25) Frequently, they roamed Jerusalem together, while she questioned him and watched him at work.
Once, observing a laborer wearing ragged garments, sweating, carrying a stone on his head and a jug of water around his neck, Solomon mused:
Then what is the use of us, the children of men, if we do not exercise kindness and love upon earth? Are we not all nothingness, mere grass of the field, which withereth in its season and is burnt in the fire? On the earth we wear costly apparel... we provide ourselves with sweet scents... but even whilst we are alive we are dead in sin and in transgressions. Blessed is the man who knoweth wisdom, compassion and the fear of God." (26)
Whether Sheba was an adoring adolescent in search of a wise hero, or a confident and powerful woman who journeyed to Jerusalem to challenge Solomon, Shebsa was very impressed with his wisdom, compassion, justice and wealth. I Kings tells us:
Josephus also states that she was surprised to learn that the flattering reports she had heard about Solomon were true, "that she was amazed at the wisdom of Solomon.... She was in the greatest admiration imaginable, insomuch that she was not able to contain the surprise she was in, but openly confessed how wonderfully she was affected." (28)
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Whatever his marital status when he met Makeda, Solomon was a handsome man, attractive to women. With dark hair, a tanned lean body and gracious smile, he had an attentive bearing and compelling charm. He also possessed courtly manners and a lively, youthful spirit. Bedecked in elegant tunics of fine fabric dyed royal purple, he wore golden collars and chains, as well a golden circlet with sea-green stones.
Although reports in I Kings of his 40,000 horse stalls and 1400 chariots may be exaggerated, archaeologists have unearthed 450 horse stalls and 150 sheds for chariots at Megiddo alone. Indeed, Solomon was a wealthy king who gloried in splendor and luxury. His palace boasted vineyards, gardens, pools and singers with exotic musical instruments. Its three large pillared halls, built of cedar and cypress, were ornamented with carved ivory, gold, and sandalwood, with draperies of crimson and purple. Between two imposing gold lions, he sat on his great ivory throne with golden armrests and golden embroidery.
A gracious host, Solomon showed Sheba his gardens of rare flowers ornamented with pools and fountains, and the architectural splendors of his government buildings, temple and palace. She was awed by his work on the temple, by his great lion-throne and sandalwood staircase, and by his enormous brass basin carried by the twelve brass bulls which symbolized the twelve months of the year. She sought astronomical knowledge, for which he was known; Solomon had developed a new calendar which added an extra month every nineteen years.
According to Josephus, "upon the king's kind reception of her, he both showed a great desire to please her, and easily comprehending in his mind the meaning of the curious questions she propounded to him, he resolved them." (17) Not only did Sheba ask Solomon philosophical questions; she also tested him with riddles. The Targum Sheni, Midrash Mischle, and Midrash Hachefez describe twenty two of her riddles: 
In addition to riddles which required a verbal answer, Sheba tested Solomon's ingenuity in action. Dressing five boys and girls identically, she asked him to detect their sex. When he handed them bowls of water for them to wash their hands, the girls, unlike the boys, rolled up their sleeves. Sheba also brought Solomon two flowers alike in appearance, but one was real while the other was artificial; he distinguished them by noting how bees swarmed to the flower with the genuine fragrance. Then, giving him a large emerald with a curved hole in the middle, she asked him to draw a thread through it; he sent for a silkworm, which crawled through the hole drawing with it a silken thread. The Queen of Sheba || Sheba: The Empire || ViewZoneVisits Sheba's Temple || ViewZone
Who was Solomon || Solomon and Sheba || Sheba and Her Son || Viewzone's Translations
