1. the Queen of Sheba. The consensus is that Sheba is far to the south of ancient Israel, somewhere on the Arabian peninsula along the shore of the Red Sea. This episode is linked associatively with the immediately preceding passage in which Solomon builds fleets on the Red Sea and carries on trade in rich materials with the south.

for the name of the LORD. This phrase, repeatedly used for the building of the Temple, is a little cryptic in the present context. It might mean that Solomon’s fabulous wisdom, granted to him as a special gift by God, was because of its divine source “for the name of the LORD.”

2. And she came to Jerusalem with a very great retinue. This encounter between the queen of a southern kingdom and the great King Solomon has gripped the imagination of readers, writers, and artists over the ages. Among countless elaborations of the story in poetry and painting, an especially memorable one is “The Visit of the Queen of Sheba,” a cycle of poems by the great Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai, which highlights the grand voyage over the Red Sea and teases out an erotic subtext from the biblical tale.

spoke to him all that was in her heart. The heart here is the locus of intellection, not emotion, so what she speaks are all the riddles she had carefully prepared to pose to him.

3. And Solomon told her all her questions. The verb “told,” is regularly used for pronouncing the solution to a riddle, as in the Samson story. “Questions” here is the term that usually means “words” but has to be rendered as “questions” to make the sentence intelligible. It is something of a tease that the story does not divulge any of her riddles—of course, leaving much room for later interpreters.

4. And the Queen of Sheba saw all Solomon’s wisdom. Scholars conventionally classify this story as a Wisdom text, a judgment that might be questioned. Wisdom is celebrated as a value, but in fact there is no Wisdom content in this story (in contrast to Proverbs or Qohelet).

and the house that he had built. She is impressed not only by Solomon’s wisdom but—perhaps just as much—by the material splendor and affluence of his palace and his court. One extravagantly wealthy monarch duly recognizes the tremendous wealth of the other.

5. the burnt offering. Two ancient versions vocalize this word differently to yield “the ascent on which he would go up to the house of the LORD,” though a grand abundance of daily sacrifices would certainly be evidence of his regal wealth.

9. May the LORD your God be blessed. The dazzling impression that Solomon makes on the Queen of Sheba is thus seen as a confirmation of the greatness of YHWH, the God of Israel. At the same time, the whole story of the triumphal encounter of Israel’s king with a great queen from the distant south is a vivid illustration of Solomon’s supreme regal grandeur, which has been a repeated theme in the preceding chapters.

10. And she gave the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold. There is no indication that a wager was involved in solving the riddles, as in the Samson story, although that is possible. The more likely explanation of her act is that she is moved to offer a generous gift from her own great wealth as a gesture of appreciation to the wise and great king. In verse 13, we learn that she on her part asks for an exchange of gifts, to which Solomon readily agrees. Some interpreters see this part of the story as an oblique reflection of trade relations between Israel and Sheba, though it may be more plausible to read it simply as a diplomatic exchange of regal generosity.

a very great abundance of spices. The Arabian peninsula was in fact known in the ancient world for its spices and perfumes, something of which Shakespeare was still aware when he had Lady Macbeth say, “All the perfumes of Araby will not sweeten this little hand.”

11. And Hiram’s fleet . . . that bore gold from Ophir. The obvious associative connection is the bringing of precious materials from southern regions. Ophir probably was also in the Arabian peninsula.

16. two hundred shields of . . . gold. These shields and bucklers (the precise distinction between the two Hebrew terms cannot be determined) made of gold are obviously not fashioned to be used in combat but as ornamental objects, evoking by their form the king’s military power and by their substance his great wealth.

17. three hundred. The received text reads “three,” too little if six hundred are used for the shields, but two ancient versions show “three hundred.”

the Lebanon Forest House. If this evidently impressive hall in the palace was, as some claim, an armory, it might have been a symbolic armory because the shields displayed in it were not actually for military use. Verse 21 notes that everything in the House of Lebanon was made of pure gold, so it could even have been a kind of treasury.

22. a Tarshish fleet. Tarshish is generally thought to be a Mediterranean port far to the west, though scholars differ about its precise location. The allied fleets of Solomon and Hiram, however, were plying the Red Sea, so it is more likely that the term refers to a kind of ship—the sort built in Tarshish or outfitted to reach far-off Tarshish. It has also been proposed that the term derives from the Greek tarsos, “oar,” and so designates a sailing ship that is also equipped with oars.

parrots. Others understand the term to mean “peacocks,” although parrots are a better pairing with apes.

23. And King Solomon was greater than all the kings of the earth in wealth and in wisdom. This stature has just been demonstrated in the story of the Queen of Sheba.

26. And Solomon gathered chariots and horsemen. The reiterated emphasis on Solomon’s chariots and horses might reflect historical reality, but it also echoes, perhaps a little ominously, the warning in Deuteronomy 17:16 for the future king, “Only let him not get himself many horses.” The text in Deuteronomy, of course, might be a response to Solomon’s royal extravagances.

twelve thousand horsemen. The fact that the number of horsemen is so much greater than the number of chariots suggests that the term parashim refers both to charioteers and to cavalrymen.

28. And the source of Solomon’s horses was from Muzri and from Kue. Both the geography and the terminology for Solomon’s international horse trading in these last two verses of the chapter are rather obscure. The received text reads Mitsrayim, “Egypt,” which was not known for the export of horses, but many scholars emend this to Mutsri, a town in northern Syria (Kue is in Asia Minor). The substitution of a familiar term for an unfamiliar word is one of the most common causes of scribal error.

29. coming up. Literally, “would come up and go out.” Some interpreters take this as an idiom for “export,” but that is not entirely clear.

by the sea. The Masoretic Text reads beyadam, “in their hand,” which is obscure because there is no clear antecedent for “their.” This translation follows the Septuagint, which appears to have used a Hebrew text that read bayam, a difference of a single consonant. The transportation of horses from the north by ship along the Mediterranean coast seems plausible.

to all the kings of the Hittites and to the kings of Aram. This would mean that Solomon not only purchased horses for his own use but engaged in an international trade of horses. It is also possible that the preposition “to” (a single-consonant particle) is a scribal error for “from.”