Thursday, 18 August 2016

THE QUEEN OF SHEBA.

The king David was succeeded by his son Solomon, who was known for his relationship with God.
The queen of Sheba, also known as a great ruler, was a royal visitor who came from the uttermost parts of the earth, from the extremities of the then known world, to hear the wisdom of Solomon.
The Queen of the South came to Jerusalem in all her splendor, with a great retinue, with camels bearing spices, and very much gold, and precious stones. Never again came such an abundance of spices as those which she gave to Solomon.
Solomon had originally been told of the kingdom of Sheba and of its queen by a bird, whose language he understood. Sheba was a peaceful country, full of gold and silver, whose plants were watered by the rivers of Paradise. He wanted to meet the queen because he had heard of her wonderful land.
The Queen wanted to meet him because he had a reputation for wisdom, and she came to prove him with hard questions about strange things and Solomon answered every one of them.
The Queen was literally overwhelmed by Solomon's answers and astonished by his wisdom, by his orderly manner of his kingdom and his faith, his great wealth, the magnificence of his palace and the number of his servants.
The Queen praised Solomon openly and, even more significantly, began to give the praise to Solomon's God, the One Lord. After presenting gold, spices, and precious stones to Solomon (the Old Testament type of visit of the 3 Kings to baby Jesus), she left Jerusalem with her great train of camels and attendants.
Allegorical interpretations of this episode equated Solomon with "Christ the King"and the queen of Sheba with Mary, the virgin. It also represent non believers acknowledging Christianity, and the queen of Sheba is representing in this case the ones with a very righteous nature but without knowledge of the Kingdom of God.
There are additional non-biblical versions of the visit. One is that the queen had exceptionally hairy legs and hoped to obtain a depilatory recipe from the wise king. Another is that Solomon had heard rumors that she had hirsute limbs and webbed feet. To discover the truth, he caused her to walk over a polished crystal and she, mistaking this for a pool of water, raised her skirt.
 It was also said that the wood of the 'Tree of Knowledge'  had been used to bridge a stream in Jerusalem. In a vision, the queen of Sheba had been told that this would be the 'True Cross.' She refused to walk over the bridge, worshiped the wood, and forded the stream barefoot.
The royal house of Ethiopia claimed to be descended from the union of Solomon and their Queen, and black Jews of Ethiopia, the Fal-Ashas, trace their own origin to the Israelites whom Solomon sent back with her.
Another descendant of their union, other versions says, was Nebu-Chad-Nezz-Ar, who became king of Babylon.
The 'En-Medur-Anki Legend (seed of kingship) is a Sumero-Akkadian composition relating his endowment with perfect wisdom by the god 'Marduk' and his claim to belong to a 'distant line of kingship from before the Flood' and to be an 'offspring of En-Medur-Anki, king of Sippar.' It begins with a lament over preceding events:
"At that time, in the reign of a previous king, conditions changed. Good departed and Evil was regular.
The Lord became angry and got furious. He gave the command and the gods of the land abandoned it
... its people were incited to commit crime. The guardians of peace became furious, and went up to the dome of heaven, the spirit of justice stood aside ... who guards living beings, prostrated the people, they all became like those who have no god. Evil demons filled the land, the Nam-Tar-Demon ... they penetrated the cult centers. The land diminished, its fortunes changed. The wicked Elamite, who did not hold (the land's) treasures in esteem ... his battle, his attack was swift. He devastated the habitations, he made them into a ruin, he carried off the gods, he ruined the shrines."
The duration of Nebu-Chad-Nezz-Ar' s war with Elam and the number of campaigns he conducted are not known.


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