2 Chronicles 9

KJV · Chapter 9/36

¹And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon, she came to prove Solomon with hard questions at Jerusalem, with a very great company, and camels that bare spices, and gold in abundance, and precious stones: and when she was come to Solomon, she communed with him of all that was in her heart.

²And Solomon told her all her questions: and there was nothing hid from Solomon which he told her not.

³And when the queen of Sheba had seen the wisdom of Solomon, and the house that he had built,

⁴And the meat of his table, and the sitting of his servants, and the attendance of his ministers, and their apparel; his cupbearers also, and their apparel; and his ascent by which he went up into the house of the Lord; there was no more spirit in her.

⁵And she said to the king, It was a true report which I heard in mine own land of thine acts, and of thy wisdom:

⁶Howbeit I believed not their words, until I came, and mine eyes had seen it: and, behold, the one half of the greatness of thy wisdom was not told me: for thou exceedest the fame that I heard.

⁷Happy are thy men, and happy are these thy servants, which stand continually before thee, and hear thy wisdom.

⁸Blessed be the Lord thy God, which delighted in thee to set thee on his throne, to be king for the Lord thy God: because thy God loved Israel, to establish them for ever, therefore made he thee king over them, to do judgment and justice.

⁹And she gave the king an hundred and twenty talents of gold, and of spices great abundance, and precious stones: neither was there any such spice as the queen of Sheba gave king Solomon.

¹⁰And the servants also of Huram, and the servants of Solomon, which brought gold from Ophir, brought algum trees and precious stones.

¹¹And the king made of the algum trees terraces to the house of the Lord, and to the king’s palace, and harps and psalteries for singers: and there were none such seen before in the land of Judah.

¹²And king Solomon gave to the queen of Sheba all her desire, whatsoever she asked, beside that which she had brought unto the king. So she turned, and went away to her own land, she and her servants.

¹³Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred and threescore and six talents of gold;

¹⁴Beside that which chapmen and merchants brought. And all the kings of Arabia and governors of the country brought gold and silver to Solomon.

¹⁵And king Solomon made two hundred targets of beaten gold: six hundred shekels of beaten gold went to one target.

¹⁶And three hundred shields made he of beaten gold: three hundred shekels of gold went to one shield. And the king put them in the house of the forest of Lebanon.

¹⁷Moreover the king made a great throne of ivory, and overlaid it with pure gold.

¹⁸And there were six steps to the throne, with a footstool of gold, which were fastened to the throne, and stays on each side of the sitting place, and two lions standing by the stays:

¹⁹And twelve lions stood there on the one side and on the other upon the six steps. There was not the like made in any kingdom.

²⁰And all the drinking vessels of king Solomon were of gold, and all the vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon were of pure gold: none were of silver; it was not any thing accounted of in the days of Solomon.

²¹For the king’s ships went to Tarshish with the servants of Huram: every three years once came the ships of Tarshish bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks.

²²And king Solomon passed all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom.

²³And all the kings of the earth sought the presence of Solomon, to hear his wisdom, that God had put in his heart.

²⁴And they brought every man his present, vessels of silver, and vessels of gold, and raiment, harness, and spices, horses, and mules, a rate year by year.

²⁵And Solomon had four thousand stalls for horses and chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen; whom he bestowed in the chariot cities, and with the king at Jerusalem.

²⁶And he reigned over all the kings from the river even unto the land of the Philistines, and to the border of Egypt.

²⁷And the king made silver in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar trees made he as the sycomore trees that are in the low plains in abundance.

²⁸And they brought unto Solomon horses out of Egypt, and out of all lands.

²⁹Now the rest of the acts of Solomon, first and last, are they not written in the book of Nathan the prophet, and in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and in the visions of Iddo the seer against Jeroboam the son of Nebat?

³⁰And Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel forty years.

³¹And Solomon slept with his fathers, and he was buried in the city of David his father: and Rehoboam his son reigned in his stead.

📖 Chapter study

Summary

The queen of Sheba travels from distant lands to test Solomon's wisdom with difficult questions, and is impressed beyond her expectations. The chapter also summarizes Solomon's extraordinary wealth, military power, and international fame before his death.

Explanation

The visit of the queen of Sheba, probably from the region of present-day Yemen or Ethiopia, is a powerful testimony to the international reach of Solomon's reputation, drawing visitors from distant lands driven by curiosity about his exceptional wisdom. Her reaction — acknowledging that the reality surpassed even the reports she had already heard, and praising the God of Israel for placing Solomon on the throne — shows how Israel's wisdom and prosperity served as a testimony for other nations to recognize the God of Israel himself. The final summary of Solomon's excessive wealth, with silver becoming as common as stones in Jerusalem, marks the absolute peak of the united kingdom's material prosperity, just before the decline that would begin in the very next chapter.

Fun facts

Jesus, in Matthew 12:42, makes direct reference to the 'queen of the south' who came from the ends of the earth to hear Solomon's wisdom, using this historical episode as an example to challenge his contemporaries who rejected an even greater wisdom present before them.
Ethiopian tradition holds that the queen of Sheba had a son with Solomon, named Menelik, who supposedly became the ancestor of Ethiopia's royal dynasty — an influential legend in Ethiopian culture, though not confirmed by the biblical text itself.

Verse-by-verse explanation

2 Chronicles 9:1The queen of Sheba travels with an enormous retinue just to test Solomon with hard questions, the kind of test that served both to gauge his reputation for wisdom and to negotiate trade relations between the two kingdoms.
2 Chronicles 9:2Solomon answers every one of the queen of Sheba’s hard questions without leaving a single one unanswered — the test of wisdom she had come looking for is confirmed point by point.
2 Chronicles 9:3Beyond the correct answers, the queen also sees with her own eyes the palace Solomon built, just as impressed by the structure as by his words.
2 Chronicles 9:4The food at the royal table, the organization of the officials and servants, their uniforms, and even the ascent leading up to the temple leave the queen breathless — the luxury shows through in every detail of daily life.
2 Chronicles 9:5The queen admits to Solomon that she had already heard of his fame in her own land, but wanted to confirm in person whether it was really true.
2 Chronicles 9:6After seeing everything up close, the queen confesses that the reports didn’t even come close to the reality — what she had heard was not even half of what she actually saw.
2 Chronicles 9:7The queen even praises Solomon’s own officials, calling happy those who get to stay close by, always hearing his wisdom.
2 Chronicles 9:8The queen acknowledges that Solomon’s success comes from God’s love for Israel — he was set on the throne precisely to do justice and govern with righteousness.
2 Chronicles 9:9Before leaving, the queen gives Solomon an enormous quantity of gold, along with spices so rare that none like them ever appeared again in the kingdom.
2 Chronicles 9:10At the same time, the sailors of Huram and of Solomon bring algum wood and precious stones from Ophir — another valuable cargo arriving by sea.
2 Chronicles 9:11With this rare wood, Solomon has terraces made for the temple and the palace, along with musical instruments the like of which no one in Judah had ever seen before.
2 Chronicles 9:12Solomon returns the favor by giving the queen of Sheba everything she asked for, beyond what she had already brought — after that she returns to her own land with her retinue.
2 Chronicles 9:13Six hundred sixty-six talents of gold coming to Solomon in a single year, not counting what came from trade — this kind of extravagant number appears several times in the book to mark the kingdom’s wealth at its height, though, as always with these lists, scholars debate the best way to read such high quantities in ancient texts.
2 Chronicles 9:14Besides the gold already coming in through trade, Arabian kings and regional governors also sent gold and silver to Solomon regularly — one more source of wealth added to the others.
2 Chronicles 9:15Solomon has two hundred large shields made of hammered gold, each using a generous amount of the metal — pure display of royal wealth.
2 Chronicles 9:16Besides the large shields, three hundred smaller shields of hammered gold round out the collection, kept in a building called the “house of the forest of Lebanon,” built of cedar wood.
2 Chronicles 9:17Solomon has an enormous throne of ivory built, all overlaid with pure gold — a direct symbol of the king’s power and wealth.
2 Chronicles 9:18The throne had six steps, a gold footstool attached to it, armrests on each side of the seat, and two carved lions resting on those armrests.
2 Chronicles 9:19Twelve carved lions, two on each of the six steps, completed the throne — the text assures us no other kingdom had built anything like it.
2 Chronicles 9:20All of Solomon’s cups and vessels were gold, both in the palace and in the house of the forest of Lebanon — silver had become so common it practically lost its value.
2 Chronicles 9:21Solomon’s fleet, with sailors lent by Huram, sailed to Tarshish and returned every three years bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks — exotic goods from distant lands.
2 Chronicles 9:22The summary is direct: Solomon surpassed all the kings of the earth in both riches and wisdom.
2 Chronicles 9:23Kings from everywhere sought Solomon out in person just to hear the wisdom God had put in him.
2 Chronicles 9:24Each visitor brought his own gift — gold objects, clothing, armor, spices, horses, and mules — a steady flow of tribute repeated every year.
2 Chronicles 9:25Four thousand stalls and twelve thousand horsemen show the scale of Solomon’s army; it’s worth noting that the parallel account in Kings records a quite different number of stalls, one of several points where the two books don’t line up exactly on numeric details.
2 Chronicles 9:26Solomon’s dominion stretched from the river Euphrates to the land of the Philistines and the border of Egypt — a territory far larger than Israel alone.
2 Chronicles 9:27Silver became as common in Jerusalem as stone, and cedar as common as wild fig trees — the same image of extreme abundance already used in chapter 1 to describe the kingdom’s wealth.
2 Chronicles 9:28Horses kept arriving for Solomon from Egypt and other regions, feeding the chariot trade he himself resold to other kings.
2 Chronicles 9:29The final summary of Solomon’s reign points to records by three prophets of the time — Nathan, Ahijah, and Iddo — sources the Chronicler himself cites as the basis for the account.
2 Chronicles 9:30Solomon reigns forty years in Jerusalem over all Israel — still the united kingdom, before the division that comes in the next chapter.
2 Chronicles 9:31Solomon dies and is buried in the city of David, his father, and his son Rehoboam takes the throne — the transition that will trigger the crisis of the next chapter.

Chapters

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