Biblical Literacy with Casey #6: The Queen of Sheba
The western world has a fixation on exotic foreign queens. From Cleopatra to Pocahontas, foreign queens are viewed as both objects of beauty and sources of secret wisdom — with a heavy dose of orientalism. From their strange cultures where women have power, they are political forces in their own right to be revered and sometimes feared. Possibly the most famous in the western cannon is the Queen of Sheba — the African queen who visited King Solomon during the height of his power in the mid 10th century BCE. This unnamed queen from eastern Africa (and/or parts of southern Arabia) is only briefly mentioned in the Bible, but her unique story spawned countless interpretations and elaborate back stories in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Her figure and mythology is also a point of ethnic and national pride. Ethiopian Jews and Christians both claim to be descended from the Queen of Sheba and Solomon. The Bible does not say they slept together. It only says Solomon “gave her everything her heart desired (I Kings 10:13),” but you get the hint. The kings of Judah in Jerusalem and Jesus Christ trace their family line back to David and Solomon, and as such Ethiopian Christians and Jews are not merely claiming an important ancestor — they are claiming to be a part of the messianic lineage promised by God. They are claiming that within their bloodline is the rightful heir to the kingdom of Israel and possibly the source of God’s messiah.
Earlier Queens of Africa and the Unique Place of Ethiopia
The Queen of Sheba is not the first notable female ruler from the area of Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. We need to remember that ancient people also had ancient history. There is a greater distance between Cleopatra (1st cent. BC) and the building of the Pyramids (mid 3rd millennium BC) than Cleopatra and the first moon landing.
To illustrate this point further, let’s straighten out one common misconception: the Pyramids were built long before before the time of Jacob, Moses, or the united Kingdom of Israel with its capital and its temple in Jerusalem (I’m not getting into the historicity of any of those three here). They also were not built by slaves. In the time of King David and Solomon or earlier during the height of the Egyptian empire and the greatest pharaohs in the 18th Dynasty (16th to late 13th century BC) people looked at the Pyramids with the same sense of awe and deep history as we look at them today. The Pyramids were built much earlier than anything in the Bible (unless you take Noah’s flood and the Garden Eden literally, in which case the Pyramids and much of early human history should not exist). The Pyramids were built by the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Dynasties in Egypt from around 2,650 BC to 2,350 BC when the famous Pyramid Texts were compiled. Egyptians stopped making great pyramids after that. The Pyramids were tombs, and building a massive structure for your afterlife is a great way to make sure all your riches are stolen by grave robbers. Almost all of the ancient burials of pharaohs were robbed out centuries or even millennia ago, and to prevent this later pharaohs had their tomb complexes hidden (which still did little to stop them from being robbed).
More than a thousand years before the Queen of Sheba, the same ancient Egyptian rulers who built the great Pyramids at the dawn of written history also traded with eastern Africa, including a mysterious Queen Ati in the Land of Punt. Egypt has always had a unique relationship with Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, and that dynamic continues today. Their relationship is unique because it has been peaceful for 5,000 years. Never going to war with a neighboring power over the course of 5,000 years is pretty unique in human history — not to mention human nature.
Egypt on the Lower Nile (Lower Nile = north because it is downstream) was always in tension with the black African kingdoms of Nubia and Kush on the Upper Nile in what is today the countries of Sudan and South Sudan. The Nubians and Kushites had their own important queens, including the warrior queen Amanishaketo in the late 1st century BC.
The southern Nubians and Kushites in Sudan competed with the Egyptians to the north for as much control over the Nile as possible. Both their populations hugged the banks of the river. Consequently, Egypt and Nubia or Kush never set their territorial sights on Ethiopia and eastern Africa. Over the course of more than 5,000 years of history, Ethiopia has never been invaded from the west. The highland mountains of central and northwestern Ethiopia are easy to defend and contain abundant water and fertile land. It is a geographic stronghold, and because of this Ethiopia has always been a regional power in Africa.
Some of the earliest Christian and Jewish communities flourished in Ethiopia, and later when Islam came to the region the Ethiopian Christians continued to rule Ethiopia from the highlands despite being surrounded by predominantly Muslim populations and sultans in modern day Somalia. These Christians and Jews were not just isolated from any incursion from Islamic groups — they were even isolated from the rest of Christianity and Judaism. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church was never consolidated under the Roman Catholic Church. Likewise, in the early 1980s and 90s many Ethiopian Jews began to emigrate to Israel, but this created some conflict with Ashkenazi European and Sephardic Middle Eastern Jews because the black Ethiopian Jewish community is so racially and culturally distinctive from the two largest ethnic groups in Judaism. Ethiopian Jews have largely assimilated in Israel at this point, though tensions remain. Until the Ethiopian Jews emigrated to the modern state of Israel, Ethiopia had the greatest confluence of Abrahamic religions outside the Holy Land.
Sudan vs. Egypt — Ethiopia on the Sidelines
The same ancient dynamics of this region continue in the present. For centuries the ruling government in Ethiopia has enjoyed good relations with Egypt and Sudan, while the relationship between the Sudanese and Egyptian governments remains tense. Egypt and Nubia never get along whether it is today or thousands of years ago.
Ethiopia caused some controversy recently with their plans to build the new Grand Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile in Ethiopia. This has brought some complaints from Sudan and Egypt, but the most vocal opposition has come from Egypt because Egypt is the last country to receive the waters of the Nile. In the age of hydroelectric dams and industrial pollution, it does not pay to be downstream. Sudan does not care about the Ethiopian dam as much because they have sovereign control over the other branch of the river: the White Nile.
The Nile has two branches — the Blue Nile and the White Nile, and Sudan controls the latter. For the first time in history, there has been some contention between Ethiopia and Egypt over the Nile, which is only possible with the technology to create hydroelectric dams. Until now, Sudan (i.e. Nubia) and Egypt competed with one another on the Nile, while Ethiopia remained in its own fertile territory in the highlands next to the Horn of Africa and the lucrative trade routes that pass through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.
The Defiance of East Africa
Ethiopia has always been unique compared to the rest of sub saharan Africa. During the colonial period Ethiopia was the only African nation that was not successfully taken over by European powers. The Italians tried and mostly failed. In the First Italo-Ethiopian war in 1894–1896 Emperor Menelilk II of the Abyssinian/Ethiopian empire defeated the Italians so badly at the Battle of Adwa that riots broke out in Italy, and a few weeks later the government of Francesco Crispi collapsed. Before WWII the Italians tried again, and this time they succeeded but for a very short time. Mussolini took control of Ethiopia in 1936, but the British helped restore Ethiopian sovereignty under Emperor Haile Selassie in 1941. Being from the same family as Menelik II, Haile Selassie and his entire royal line claimed a direct blood relation to King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Some groups took this claim very seriously, including the Rastafarian movement in Jamaica, which viewed Haile Selassie as the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. Haile Selassie never promoted this claim… but he never denied it either.
A Strange Queen From A Strange Land
The Queen of Sheba came from this utterly unique land in eastern Africa. To understand her mythology you must understand this place and its ancient history, which cannot be understated. The first anatomically human fossils come from Ethiopia and Kenya, and the people of this region are uniquely aware of their ancient roots since time immemorial. Here where I live in Georgia outside Atlanta we think something is old if it comes from the Civil War. In Ethiopia, centuries ago was practically yesterday.
The land of Ethiopia is close enough to the Mediterranean and the western extent of the Silk Road to participate in its trade and interact with its cultures, but it is isolated enough to be removed from its conquests (mostly). The Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the dynasties of Egypt, and the powers of the Arabian Peninsula — Ethiopia interacted with all of them while being conquered by none of them. This is the place of the Queen of Sheba. She is mighty but removed from the power plays of the Mediterranean world. Her empire rests ancient and secure in east Africa.
The Bible says she sought King Solomon for his great wisdom, but this may be more indicative of the place of ancient Israel than the (allegedly) wisdom of King Solomon himself. In retrospect, King Solomon was not all that wise. He sold some of his own people in his northwest territory into slavery to get the King of Tyre to help build his temple in Jerusalem. He disproportionally taxed and burdened the northern 10 tribes of Israel, which set the stage for them to break away and form the Northern Kingdom of Israel after his death. He had 700 wives and 300 concubines, which would exhaust any man’s search for wisdom. He wasn’t even one of the first four sons in line for the throne in Jerusalem after David. In some ways, Solomon was a remarkably incompetent ruler who got by on the coattails of his warrior king father David. However, his kingdom was the rightful place to seek the wisdom of the known world.
Jerusalem was a place to seek wisdom no matter who sat on the throne. The Holy Land is located at the intersection of Europe, Africa, and Asia. Armies, empires, and merchants crossing the continents must pass through Israel/ Samaria/ Canaan/ Palestine/ the Holy Land/ the Southern Levant — whatever you want to call it (sometimes you know how politically controversial a place is by how many names it has).
Contrary to the portrayal in the Bible, this region never produced a great empire or at least not one that lasted for any length of time. Rather, Israel was always sandwiched between two greater powers. To the south is Egypt, which waxed and waned as a great power. To the north was the Hittites, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, and successive powers that were greater than Israel. The rulers in Jerusalem had to play a careful game balancing their sovereignty between greater powers to their south and north. Whenever one become too powerful it would set its sights on the other, and Israel or Judah would have to make an alliance with that power or risk having an army run right through it on the way north or south to take on their main rival.
By visiting Jerusalem the Queen of Sheba was making herself known to the larger powers of the ancient world without submitting to the larger powers in Egypt or those to the north. The king in Jerusalem was another medium tier power, but Jerusalem benefitted (and suffered from) its geographic place where multiple cultures, religions, trade routes, and sometimes armies meet. If you wanted to visit the nexus of the world’s wisdom then Jerusalem was the place to go — precariously set at the meeting place of the world’s powers.
Of course other royals and dignitaries visited Jerusalem at that time, but their stories are not as sexy as a foreign queen. The Bible makes her out to be a kind of groupie for Solomon, but in reality she was in a better position. She would return to a secure kingdom in East Africa, while Solomon’s kingdom was continually threatened by larger powers to the north and south. In fact, right after Solomon’s death the kingdom split in two, and Egypt invaded Judah and stole much of Jerusalem’s riches. You have to wonder what the Queen of Sheba or her daughters or sons thought of that when they heard of the downfall of Solomon’s kingdom.
The Queen of Sheba and the Ark of the Covenant
According to the Kebra Nagast — a medieval account that is sacred to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church — Solomon tricked the Queen of Sheba into sleeping with him, and returning home she gave birth to a son. When the son Menelik came of age he traveled to Jerusalem by way of Gaza and met his father Solomon for the first time. He is well received by his father, and according to the story Solomon begs Menelik to stay and rule the kingdom in Jerusalem and take over the throne from the aging Solomon (pretty huge offer from an absent father), but Menelik prefers to go home to his kingdom in Ethiopia. While returning he finds that the Ark of the Covenant in Solomon’s Temple has mysteriously ended up in his caravan. It does not say that Menelik stole it. The story is meant to push the idea that God’s power is leaving Solomon and Jerusalem for Menelik’s kingdom in Ethiopia. Solomon tries to pursue Menelik and take back the Ark, but the strange power of the ark prevents him from doing so.
All holy scriptures have a political agenda. The First and Second Book of Kings in the Bible is a historical propaganda piece promoting the legitimacy of the Davidic royal family in Jerusalem. The Kebra Nagast does the same for the royal family in Ethiopia. Holy scripture can contain political propaganda, accurate history, woefully inaccurate history, mythology, and inspirations of the spirit of God all at once. An element of one does not erase all others, and if Christians or Jews want to revere the accounts of Solomon as divinely inspired holy scripture then that is their right — just so long as we understand their context. Mythologies reveal deeper realities.
In the end the United Monarchy under Solomon falls apart. The story of the Ark traveling to the land of the Queen of Sheba simply reflects a geopolitical reality. The grand power of Jerusalem could only ever be temporary. The physical manifestation of God’s power in the Ark of the Covenant needed a more secure place to reside, and what better place than Ethiopia, which has remained unconquered for thousand of years — never submitting to outside powers. In the final account the Queen of Sheba is better off than Solomon, and unlike him her legacy remains untarnished. Her mysterious figure is a canvass upon which we can paint a legacy of enduring power.
