Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Chronicles 8-10.

In today’s passage, chapters 8 and 9 are written to highlight Solomon’s wealth, power, and wisdom.   In particular, chapter 8 discusses how he used the wealth he acquired to strengthen Israel by building fortified cities and settling Israelites into border territories.  Chapter 9 illustrates how word of his knowledge and wisdom spread far and wide, with the Queen of Sheba coming to see for herself that the rumors were true.  Perhaps I am reading too much into it, but in the account here, and in the one in 1 Kings, the Queen of Sheba comes to Jerusalem after Solomon had partnered with Hiram of Tyre to send a trading fleet into the Arabian Sea.  This is significant because the best sources I can find place the kingdom of Sheba as being on the Arabian Peninsula in the area where Yemen is today.  With such a location, Sheba would have traded with the east coast of Africa and with India.  Reading the descriptions of Solomon’s trade fleets suggests that they also traded with the east coast of Africa (perhaps as far south as modern South Africa) and with India.   It is likely that Solomon was taking goods obtained from the lands along the western Mediterranean, transporting them overland the short distance to the Red Sea, then carrying them by boat to lands to the east.  The Queen of Sheba traveled to Jerusalem to determine what kind of threat this new trading empire was to her own country’s prosperity.  I believe her comments about Solomon’s wisdom indicate that she found Solomon intent on making mutually beneficial trades with all his subordinates encountered (after all, Solomon and his father before him had a mutually beneficial relationship with Tyre).

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.