Passing out from under the Theocracy, or rule of the Judges, the first woman in White Raiment that appears on the page of the Sacred Record is Abigail. She was the wife of Nabal, a wealthy owner of goats and sheep in Carmel, not the Mount Carmel of Central Palestine, between the maritime plain of Sharon on the south, and the great inland expanse known as the plain of Esdraelon on the north, but a town in the mountainous country of Judah, to the west of the lower end of the Dead Sea. She was a woman of good understanding and of a beautiful countenance—a fit combination.

Her character had written its legend on her face. The two things do not always go together. There are many beautiful women wholly destitute of good understanding, just as birds of rarest plumage are commonly deficient in the power of song. But a good understanding, which is moral rather than intellectual, casts a glow of beauty over the plainest features.

But Abigail’s husband was a churl. The great establishment over which she presided would be called, in our modern times, a sheep ranch, and, under the management of such a man as Nabal, the servants doubtless often echoed the ill-temper of their master, and her wits would be often sharpened to the utmost to keep all within the limits of safety and comfort.

Evidently, at her birth, Abigail had been a welcomed child in a happy home, amid plenty and even luxury, such as the times in that rude age of the world could give. Her parents named her “Source of joy.” She had grown up in a glad, breezy confidence that made her equal to any emergency. Since God has floods of glory for the gloomiest souls, why will not parents keep their children in the clear, warm sunshine of joyful love? Many drudge early and late to provide culture and comfort; but they withhold a better, richer gift. They becloud hopelessly the dear young lives with their own disappointments, and foredoom them to despondency.

This sprightly, happy, beautiful Abigail at length married the selfish, churlish Nabal. When we look over society to-day, it is remarkable how many Abigails get married to Nabals. God-fearing women, tender and gentle in their sensibilities, high-minded and noble in their ideals, become tied in an indissoluble union with men for whom they can have no true affinity, even if they have not an unconquerable repugnance. In Abigail’s case this relationship was, in all probability, not of her choosing, but the product of the Oriental custom which compelled a girl to take her father’s choice in the matter of marriage. As a mere child she may have come into Nabal’s home, and become bound to him by an apparently inevitable fate. In other ways which involve equally little personal choice, compelled by the pressure of inexorable circumstances, misled by the deceitful tongue of flattery, her instinctive hesitancy overcome by the urgency of friends, a woman may still find herself in Abigail’s pitiful plight. To such a one there is but one advice—you must stay where you are. The dissimilarity in taste and temperament does not constitute a sufficient reason for leaving your husband to drift. You must believe that God has permitted you to enter on this awful heritage, partly because this fiery ordeal was required by your character, and partly that you might act as a counteractive influence. It may be that some day your opportunity will come, as it came to Abigail. In the meantime do not allow your purer nature to be bespotted or besmeared. You can always keep the soul clean and pure. Bide your time; and, amid the weltering waste of inky water, be like a pure fountain rising from the ocean depths.

But if any young girl of good sense and earnest aspirations, who reads these lines, secretly knows that, if she had the chance, she would wed a carriage and pair, a good position, or broad acres, irrespective of character, let her remember that to enter the marriage bond with a man, deliberately and advisedly, for such a purpose, is a profanation of the Divine ideal, and can end only in one way. She will not raise him to her level, but she will sink to his.

There came a time when Nabal had an opportunity to show kindness, to pay back, in part at least, his appreciation for the protection David and his men had given Nabal’s shepherds from Bedouin and other desert robbers. It was sheep-shearing time, a season of gladness and of feasting. David and his men were shut up in the wilderness of Engedi, driven thither by the persecutions of Saul. Doubtless they were in need of food, and David thought that the owner of three thousand sheep, and a thousand goats, in the very midst of the sheep-shearing festivities, could send him a token of remembrance in his hunger and need. So David sent ten of his young men with salutations of peace and prosperity, and a request for any favor he felt disposed to give. But Nabal answered the young men saying, “Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? there be many servants nowadays that break away every man from his master. Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men, whom I know not whence they be?”

The young men returned to David with the message of Nabal, and, naturally enough, David felt insulted and outraged. Taking a band of four hundred men, he resolved to impress upon Nabal who the “son of Jesse” was, and to make him pay dearly for his foolhardy conduct.

But, in the meantime, one of Nabal’s servants told Abigail how David’s young men had been treated. Evidently this thoughtful and prudent servant knew the excellency of his mistress, and could trust her to act wisely in the emergency which was upon them. So he told her all. Told how David and his men had been “a wall” unto the shepherds “both by night and by day,” and for all this kindness Nabal, his master, had “railed” upon David’s messengers.

THE BEAUTIFUL ABIGAIL MEETING DAVID.

Abigail immediately grasped the situation and at once despatched a small procession of provision-bearers along the way David would come. In this she did not even take Nabal into her counsel, and she prepared to pay bountifully for the conduct of her foolhardy husband.

The band had scarcely started when she followed after, and, as she expected, met the avenging warriors by the covert of the mountain, and the interview was as creditable to her woman’s wit as to her grace of heart. The lowly obeisance of the beautiful woman at the young soldier’s feet; the frank confession of the wrong that had been done; the expression of thankfulness that so far he had been kept from blood-guiltiness and from avenging his own wrongs; the depreciation of the generous present she brought as only fit for his servants; the chivalrous appreciation of his desire to fight only the battles of the Lord and to keep an unblemished name; the sure anticipation of the time when his fortunes would be secured and his enemies silenced; the suggestion that in those coming days he would be glad to have no shadow on the sunlit hills of his life, no haunting memory—all this was as beautiful and wise and womanly as it could be, and brought David back to his better self. Frank and noble as he always was, he did not hesitate to acknowledge his deep indebtedness to this lovely woman, and to see in her intercession the gracious arrest of God. “And David said to Abigail, Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me; and blessed be thy wisdom, and blessed be thou, which has kept me this day from blood-guiltiness, and from avenging myself with my own hand.”

What a revelation this is of the ministries with which God seeks to avert us from our evil ways! They are sometimes very subtle and slender, very small and still; sometimes a gentle woman’s hand laid on our wrist, the mother reminding us of her maternity, the wife of early vows, the child with its pitiful, beseeching look; sometimes a thought, holy, pleading, remonstrating. Ah, many a time we have been saved from actions which would have caused lasting regret. And above all these voices and influences there has been the gracious arresting influence of the Holy Spirit, striving with passion and selfishness, calling us to a nobler, better life. Blessed Spirit, come down more often by the covert of the hill, and stay us in our mad career, and let us not press past thee to take our own wild way, and we shall have reason for ceaseless gratitude.

Only ten days after Abigail’s womanly intercession Nabal died by the judgments of God.

When David heard of Nabal’s death, he was very grateful indeed that he had been restrained by the prudent words of Abigail, and sent messengers to her at Carmel, asking her hand in marriage. And this is the touching reply she sent back to David, “Behold, let thine handmaid be a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.”

“And Abigail hasted, and arose, and rode upon an ass, with five damsels of hers that went after her; and she went after the messengers of David, and became his wife.” After her marriage, she accompanied David in all his fortunes; and no doubt her shrewd business sense was of great service to her husband. The words she told David while he was sinking under discouragement from Nabal’s ingratitude, that he would be “bound in the bundle of life with the Lord his God,” became prophetic of her own after life. She proved that—

We next come to Michal. As Abigail had saved the life of Nabal, so Michal had saved the life of David. She was the younger of the two daughters of Saul, the first king in Israel. David had been very successful in the slaughter of the Philistines, and on his return the women came out singing songs of welcome, in which they chanted, “Saul hath slain thousands, and David ten thousands.” Saul was highly displeased with this popular welcome to David and said, “What can he have more but the kingdom?”

But, with a view of exposing the life of David, Saul promised his elder daughter, Merab, in marriage, if he would fight his battles. However, in this Saul had missed his calculations, for the Philistines were not able to take the life of David. So, no doubt, in order that he might have one more opportunity of exposing David to the dangers of war, he gave Merab to Adriel, the Mehoathite, to wife. It was a treachery such as Saul frequently practiced upon David. So he offered Michal, the second daughter, in marriage, fixing the price for her hand at no less than the slaughter of a hundred Philistines. David, by a brilliant feat, doubled the tale of his victims, and Michal became his wife.

Michal was not averse to the good luck of David, for she had so appreciated him that she had fallen violently in love with the young hero. It was not long, however, before the strength of her affections was put to the proof. After one of Saul’s attacks of frenzy, in which David had barely escaped being transfixed by the king’s spear, Michal learned that the house was being watched by Saul’s soldiers, and that it was intended on the next morning to attack her husband as he left his door. Michal seemed to have known too well the vacillating and ferocious disposition of her father when in these demoniacal moods, so, like a true soldier’s wife, she met stratagem by stratagem. She first provided for David’s safety by lowering him out of the window by means of a rope. To gain time for him to reach the residence of Samuel at Ramah, she dressed up the bed as if still occupied by him, by placing a teraphim in it, its head enveloped, like that of a sleeper, in the usual net used for protection from gnats—a sore pest in Palestine.

It happened as Michal feared. Her father sent officers to take David. Michal made answer that her husband was ill and could not be disturbed. At last Saul would not be longer put off, and ordered his messengers to force their way into David’s apartment, when they discovered the deception which had been played so successfully, Saul’s rage knew no bounds, and his fury was such that Michal was obliged to resort to another deception by pretending that David attempted to kill her.

When Michal let David down by a rope through a window on that memorable night in which she saved his life, it was the last time she saw her husband for many years. When the rupture between Saul and David became open, Saul gave Michal in marriage to Phaltiel, of Gallim, a village not far from the royal residence at Gibeah.

After the death of Saul, Michal and her new husband moved with the royal family to the east of Jordan.

It was at least fourteen years since she had watched David’s disappearance down the rope into the darkness of the night and had imperilled her own life to save his. During all these years, it would seem, his love for his absent wife had undergone no change, for he was eager to reclaim her when the first opportunity presented itself. That opportunity came when Abner revolted from Ishbosheth. Important as it was to him to make an alliance with the court of Ishbosheth, established at Mahanaim, and much as he respected Abner, he would not listen for a moment to any overtures till his wife was restored. And David sent messengers to Ishbosheth saying, “Deliver me my wife Michal.” There seemed to be no alternative, and Michal was taken from Phaltiel. That she had equally won the love of Phaltiel is manifest from the sad scene when she was taken from him, and now under the joint escort of David’s messengers and Abner’s twenty men, en route from Mahanaim to Hebron, he followed behind, bewailing the wife thus torn from him, and would not turn back until commanded to do so by Abner.

But when Michal was received into the royal home, then at Hebron, she was not the affectionate companion of David’s youth. And, doubtless, he was no longer to her what he was before she had bestowed her love upon another. They were no longer what they had been to each other. The alienation was probably mutual. On her side must have been the recollection of the long contest which had taken place in the interval between her father and David; the strong feeling in the palace at Hebron against the house of Saul, where every word she heard must have contained some distasteful allusion, and where at every turn she must have encountered men like Abiather the priest, or Ismaiah the Gibeonite, who had lost the whole or the greater part of their relatives in some sudden burst of her father’s fury. And more than all, perhaps, the inevitable difference between the husband of her recollections and the matured and occupied warrior who now received her. The whole must have come upon her as a strong contrast to the affectionate Phaltiel, whose tears had followed her along the road over Olivet until commanded to return home.

It also seems she did not enter into David’s religious sympathies. When he brought the Ark of Jehovah into Jerusalem, after the seat of government was transferred from Hebron to that city, Michal watched the procession approach from the window of the royal palace, and when she saw David in the triumphal march, “she despised him in her heart.” It would have been well if her contempt had rested there; but it was not in her nature to conceal it, and when the last burnt offering had been made, and the king entered his house to bless his family, he was received by his wife not with the congratulations which he had a right to expect and which would have been so grateful to him, but with a bitter taunt which showed how incapable she was of appreciating either her husband’s devotions, or the importance of the service in which he had been engaged. David’s answer showed that they were as wide apart religiously as he and her father had been politically. He said, “It was before the Lord, which chose me before thy father, and before all his house, to appoint me ruler over the people.” This reproof gathered up all the differences between them which made sympathy no longer possible.

We must think of Michal what she was to David in her youth, and what she might have been had she not been given to another, perhaps against her own will. Thus David lost her womanly affection, which he so much needed, and Michal lost his brave, heroic but devout spirit, which would greatly have helped her to a correct knowledge of God, for, from the fact that she had a teraphim in her house, would indicate she was not wholly free from idolatry, and this doubtless accounts for her lack of sympathy with David in his religious nature, for his devotions to God were unquestioned. Her surroundings from childhood were bad every way, and her want of religious sympathy was not so much the want of faith as the lack of opportunity to know God. We give her a place here for what she was in her youth, in saving the life of David, and what she would have been could she have grown up under the religious influences of David.

Upon the death of Saul, the first king in Israel, Rizpah, a secondary wife, and mother of his two sons Armoni and Mephibosheth, appears on the stage of action. After Saul was defeated and met with death on Mount Gilboa and the Philistines occupied the country west of the Jordan, the seat of government was transferred from Gibeah to Mahanaim for greater protection, and Rizpah accompanied the inmates of the royal household to their new residence.

Ishbosheth, the youngest of Saul’s four legitimate sons, and his rightful heir to the throne, had been proclaimed king in place of his father. Abner, Saul’s uncle, however, had command of the army, and had much to do in administering the affairs of the kingdom; and, because of this relation, and for reasons not stated, he seemed to have had frequent consultations with Rizpah, and this excited Ishbosheth’s jealousy. Among those primitive people, to take the widow of a deceased king was to aspire to the throne. Ishbosheth accused Abner of that ambitious design, and the captain, in his resentment, replied, “Am I a dog’s head, which against Judah do shew kindness this day unto the house of Saul thy father, to his brethren, and to his friends, and have not delivered thee into the hands of David, that thou chargest me to-day with a fault concerning this woman?” Abner was so wroth that he left Ishbosheth and went over to David—a piece of spite which led first to Abner’s death through Joab’s treachery, and ultimately to the murder of Ishbosheth himself.

We hear nothing more of Rizpah till the three years’ famine made it necessary to settle an old score against the house of Saul for that king’s wicked dealings with the Gibeonites. According to the crude, rough justice of the times, they demanded the death of seven of Saul’s descendants. The two sons of Rizpah and five of Saul’s grandsons were handed over to them for crucifixion.

Here Rizpah’s love, and endurance is brought to our notice. The seven crosses to which her two sons and her five relatives were fastened, were planted in the rock on the top of the sacred hill of Gibeah. The victims were sacrificed at the beginning of barley harvest—the sacred and festal time of the Passover—and in the full blaze of the summer sun they hung till the fall of the periodical rain in October. During the whole of that time Rizpah remained at the foot of the crosses on which the bodies of her sons were exposed. She had no tent to shelter her all those months from the scorching sun which beats on that open spot all day, or from the drenching dews of night, but she spread on the rock summit the thick mourning garment of black sackcloth, which, as a widow, she wore, and, crouching there, she kept off bird and beast till their bodies could have honorable burial.

At length the heroic actions of Rizpah were brought to the notice of David, who, with his usual kindness, had the bodies of Saul and his friend Jonathan brought from Jabesh-Gilead, and the bodies taken from the crosses and sepulchred in the family tomb of Kish.

Rizpah, by birth was a Hivite, and probably had not the sustaining grace which God alone can give. She had trained her sons for the splendors of a court. They were cut off in their prime, and her desolate heart had only its pride to sustain her during her superhuman anguish and endurance. Her loving, passionate nature was a bright light in a rude, dark age. With such a beautiful example before us, we need never say the circumstances of our life forbid the possibilities of living for God. The blacker the cloud the brighter may be the rainbow. The harder our situation the more can our life become a protest against it. The lighthouse needs the midnight darkness and the storm-beaten shore to bring out its value and its purpose, and there is no situation so trying and difficult but God can sustain us in it, and when we have learned our lesson enable us to triumph over it.

Rizpah’s loving fidelity has placed her in the front ranks of Bible women whose holy ministries have made them famous. She may very justly be characterized as the Mater Dolorosa of the old dispensation. Her fidelity to the memory of departed loved ones has no equal in the history of the world. And all this without the sustaining grace of God, for it must be remembered poor Rizpah was but a heathen woman, in a rude, dark age of the world. How glad we should be, that in a world where there is so much to sadden and depress, we have a Saviour to go to who knows all about our sorrow, and is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and have blessed communion with Him in whom is the one true source and fountain of all true gladness and abiding joy! In a world where so much is ever seeking to unhallow our spirits, to render them common, how high the privilege of entering into the secret of His pavilion, and there, by consecration and prayer, receive strength for days to come. Such was not Rizpah’s privilege, hence her devotion is all the more remarkable.

The history runs on. David had established his throne, and the visit of the Queen of Sheba marks the climax of the greatness of that kingdom, and the glory and wisdom of Solomon. It is a remarkable proof of the new spirit that had come upon the nation. Hitherto the people of Israel had been wholly agricultural. The great peculiarity of their country was its isolation, situated in the very midst of the nations of the earth, yet it was curiously shut in and shut out. A seaboard without a single navigable river, with a vast desert on the south, a lofty mountain range on the north, and that strange descent of the Jordan valley in the east going down more than a thousand feet below the level of the sea. But Solomon changed all that. His enterprise did not exhaust itself in building the Temple and palace of Jerusalem. He actually crossed the great desert to the south and at the head of the gulf that runs up to the east of the Arabian peninsula he made a harbor and himself superintended the building of a fleet of ships, and sent them to traffic in the east, and brought home the sandalwood and many of the treasures of the Indies, with which he enriched the palace and the garden.

SOLOMON’S MERCHANT SHIPS.

Thus his merchants went away to strange lands, carrying with them wherever they went the tidings of their great king, of the Temple that he had built to Jehovah, the God of Israel; of the palace splendors; of his throne of state in the cedar Judgment Hall, a throne of ivory with golden lions on each step, and a footstool of gold.

Now of the countries that they visited one was famous for its gold and frankincense and precious stones. It was the land of Sheba to the south. Thither came the captains and crews of Solomon’s ships, and the queen heard of the strangers who had come to trade with them in their vessels from afar, men of a strange language. She sent for them to the court to hear from their own lips the wonderful things they had to tell of their great king, and of their God, and of Jerusalem.

The mere pageantry of the visit to Jerusalem has hidden from us the true queenliness and spirit of this woman. It was no idle curiosity that prompted a journey involving so much risk and difficulty. Her very throne itself was imperilled by her departure and long absence. It is a proof of how firmly she was set in the affections of her people that she could venture to leave the land; a proof of her courage that she should dare set out on such a journey. Hearing of the wisdom of Solomon, hearing of the great things he had done for his people, hearing above all that he had brought such prosperity to the land that every man could sit safely under his own vine and fig-tree, she formed her purpose to go. If she could learn to do so much for her own people it were worth everything.

When the merchants had gone we can see her turn to her statesmen, every inch a queen, and full already of her lofty purpose, address them thus, “If I could but secure such well-being for this nation of mine, I should count it cheaply earned if I went to the ends of the earth to get it.”

It is also worthy of observation that this queen of the south was not content with hearing about Solomon. She did not listen to the tale these merchants told, and straightway forgot it all, as if it were of no further concern. She made up her mind, there and then, that if such a one lived she would go to him and ask such questions as he, and only he, could answer, that would give her peace and be a blessing to her people.

So important was this matter that she did not send an ambassador to the king. To her they were so real and sacred she must go herself, and go she did.

Oh, the misery of it is that such hosts among us are content with hearing about these blessings of God. Alas, there are thousands of people who think all this is only to be preached about, never to be sought after; only to be heard about, never really found.

She had a long way to go. We read, she came from the uttermost parts of the earth. Distances were immense in those days. It was a journey for camels, by no means a comfortable method of traveling. Soldiers must guard her, for there were many robbers; servants must go to wait upon her, for her state must be in keeping with the greatness of the foreign court. She must take with her a load of the most splendid gifts. Then there were long stretches of hot, wind-swept deserts to be crossed, in which many had perished in the sand storms. But she was not daunted, she was not to be turned aside. She had made up her mind, and bravely faced all the dangers.

And then, also, we must not overlook the fact she had no invitation. She did not know how he might receive her. These great kings were jealous of strangers. Upon some pretence that she came to spy out the land, he might have her seized as a prisoner, and held her and her servants to be ransomed at some enormous cost of money. Such things were common enough; and, if he received her, was it not likely that he would look with contempt upon her? Even civilized people like the Greeks were accustomed to regard those as barbarians whose language and ways were foreign to themselves. But this brave woman will risk it all, and with a splendid courage, the courage of a woman, she comes.

So the Queen of Sheba came to see King Solomon, and the scene of her coming was one of the utmost splendor. It was a tribute indeed to the far-reaching fame of Israel, which king and people alike may well have sought to turn to the fullest account.

THE QUEEN OF SHEBA.

At the city gate Solomon came forth to meet the queen in all his glory, with flashing crown of pure gold, and royal robes of costliest magnificence. About him are the great officers of state in their gorgeous apparel, the old wise counselors, the chief captains of his army. Everywhere are the vast crowds of citizens, thronging every house roof and city wall, and clustering on every point of vantage. The music of his singing men and singing women fills the air with glad welcome.

And now, seated at his side, in the chariot of cedar with its tapestried curtains, and drawn by the horses of Egypt all richly caparisoned, they go on their way. Solomon points out to her the Temple which he was seven years in building, and which Josephus likened to a “mountain of snow, covered with plates of gold, whose brightness made those that looked upon it turn away their eyes.” He told her there were used “talents” of gold, of silver, and of brass in its construction valued at the enormous sum of $34,399,110,000. The worth of the jewels placed at figures equally as high. The vessels of gold, according to Josephus, were valued at 140,000 talents, which reduced to money, was equal to $2,821,481,015. The vessels of silver were still more valuable, being set down at $3,231,720,000. Priests’ vestments, and robes of singers, at $10,050,000. He told her ten thousand men hewed cedars, seventy thousand bore burdens, and eighty thousand hewed stones, and it required three thousand three hundred overseers. Surely it was the wonder of the world. Then he pointed out to her the Judgment Hall, the house of the forest of Lebanon, and many other stately edifices.

And now they reach the palace, with its luxurious gardens filled with treasures from all lands. And, seated at the great banquet which the king had spread in her honor, she sees his wealth, the vastness of his possessions, the hosts of his servants, the cupbearers at his side, the banqueting hall, itself a marvel of splendor, the “ascent by which he went up unto the house of the Lord.” As she saw all this, we read, “there was no more spirit in her.” She was overwhelmed by the sight of such boundless wealth and the vision of such glory.

The Queen of the South communed with Solomon, we are told, of all that was in her heart. Simply and earnestly she told of her longings for her people and of the difficulties that beset her. She communed with him of the mystery of life, how to reach the highest and best. She asked him of many a matter that perplexed her. Graciously the king listened, and wisely he answered her. We can easily imagine the words which showed his skill in answering her questions. There may have been and doubtless was the keen wit, the brilliant saying, the flashes of wisdom, the glow of poetry, the genius like that which settled the dispute between the two mothers. Never did she dream of wisdom like that, and she exclaimed, “Behold, the half was not told me!” What she saw and heard excited her wonder to such a degree that it seemed to her directly imparted by the God of Solomon, whom he adored, and for whom she became filled with reverence. The light of heaven seemed to break on her soul when she exclaimed, “Blessed be the Lord thy God, which delighted in thee, to set thee on the throne of Israel.”

She gladly acknowledged the truth of all that she had heard. “It was a true report that I heard in my own land of thy acts and of thy wisdom.” It was not mere learning, the answering of hard questions, the solution of metaphysical problems, but his works, appointments, the sitting of his servants, and the attendance of his ministers, the civil officers who sat at the royal table, convinced the queen of his great wisdom, in which she recognized the working of a peculiar power and grace imparted by God. It was also a practical or life-wisdom, such as Solomon himself describes, “a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her, length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and honor.” Such wisdom, which rests upon the foundation of the knowledge and love of God, “is more precious than rubies, and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her.”

But the queen was not content with the words of praise and thanks. She makes proof of her gratitude by means of great and royal gifts. “She gave the king an hundred and twenty talents of gold, and of spices very great store, and precious stones.” The presents which she made consisted of those articles in which her land most abounded, and for which it was most famous. The spices were principally the celebrated Arabian balm, which was largely exported, and the shrub of which is said to have been introduced into Palestine by the Queen of Sheba.

How high the significance which has always been attached to this visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon is shown by the fact that the remembrance of it has been preserved outside of Palestine for thousands of years, and that two ancient peoples, the Arabians and Abyssinians, regard her as the mother of their line of kings. And when the Lord, from out the treasure of the Old Testament history, chooses this narrative, and presents it for the shaming of the Pharisees and Scribes, this presupposes that it was known to and specially esteemed by all other nations. Sheba was reckoned to be the richest, most highly favored and glorious land in the ancient world, and therefore was given the unique name of “The Happy.” Now when the queen came with a splendid retinue to visit this distant land, and from no political design, but merely to see and hear the famous king; and when she, the sovereign of the most fortunate country in the world, declared that what she had seen and heard exceeded all her expectations; this surely was the greatest homage Solomon could have obtained. The visit of the Queen of Sheba marks, therefore, the splendor and climax of the Old Testament Kingdom, and marks an essential moment in the history of the covenant as well as of Solomon, and when our Lord said, “The Queen of the South shall rise up in the judgment with this generation and shall condemn it; for she came from the uttermost part of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold a greater than Solomon is here,” He recognized the prophetical and typical meaning of our narrative. It is said in the prophetical descriptions of the peaceful Kingdom of Messiah, “The Kings of Sheba and Seba (Meroe) shall offer gifts; yea, all kings shall fall down before him; all nations shall serve him.” The Queen of Sheba, who came from afar, is a type of the kings who, with their people, shall come from afar to the everlasting Prince of Peace, the King of kings, and shall do Him homage. Her visit is an historical prophecy of the true and eternal Kingdom of peace.

The Queen of Sheba had everything that pertains to temporal prosperity, high rank, honor and wealth. But all these satisfied not her soul. She spared no expense or hardships, in order to satisfy the longing of her heart for the Word of Life. She said not, “I am rich, and have an abundance, and need nothing,” but she felt she still needed the highest and the best. How superior is this heathen woman to so many in Christian lands, who hunger and thirst after all possible things, but never after a knowledge of truth and wisdom, after the Word of Life. And then we do not need to journey on camels through burning deserts to Jerusalem to find Him who is greater than Solomon, for He has promised, “I am with you forever, until the end of the world,” and can be found by “whosoever” will seek after Him.