Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 2 Chronicles 9:9
And she gave the king a 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.
9. an hundred and twenty talents of gold ] A sum so large must be regarded rather as tribute than as a complimentary gift.
any such spice ] i.e. as in 1 Kin. “such abundance of spices.”
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
2Ch 9:9
And of spices great abundance.
The spicery of religion
Solomon had a great reputation for the conundrums and riddles that he made and guessed. The Solomonic navy visited all the world, and the sailors, of course, talked about the wealth of their king, and about the riddles and enigmas that he made and solved; and the news spread until Queen Balkis, away off south, heard of it, and sent messengers with a few riddles that she would like to have Solomon solve, and a few puzzles that she would like to have him find out: Queen Balkis was so pleased with the acuteness of Solomon, that she said: Ill just go and see him for myself. Yonder it comes–the cavalcade–horses and dromedaries, chariots and charioteers, jingling harness and clattering hoofs, and blazing shields, and flying ensigns, and clapping cymbals. The place is saturated with the perfume. She brings cinnamon, and saffron, and calamus, and frankincense, and all manner of sweet spices. I shall take the responsibility of saying that all the spikenard and cassia and frankincense which the Queen of Sheba brought to Solomon is mightily suggestive of the sweet spices of our holy religion.
I. Men require more of the spicery of religion to brighten their life and sweeten their disposition amid the capes and duties of life.
II. We need to put more spice and enlivement in our religious teaching.
III. We want more life and slice in our Christian work.
IV. We need more spice and enlivenment in our Church music.
V. The religion of Christ is a present and everlasting redolence that counteracts all trouble. It lifted Samuel Rutherford into a revelry of spiritual delight while he was in physical agonies. It helped Richard Baxter until, in the midst of such a complication of diseases as perhaps no other man ever suffered, he wrote The Saint Everlasting Rest. And it poured light on John Bunyans dungeon–the light of the shining gate of the shining city. Oh, you sin-parched and you trouble-pounded, here is comfort, here is satisfaction. I cannot tell you what the Lord offers you hereafter so well as I can tell you now. It doth not yet appear what we shall be. May God grant that through your own practical experience you may find that religions ways are ways of pleasantness, and that all her paths are paths of peace–that it is perfume now and perfume for ever. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
Spiced work
More than that, we want more life and spice in our Christian work. The poor do not want so much to be groaned over as sung to. With the bread, and medicines, and the garments you give them, let there be an accompaniment of smiles and brisk encouragement. Do not stand and talk to them about the wretchedness of their abode, and the hunger of their looks, and the hardness of their lot. Ah! they know it better than you can tell them. Show them the bright side of the thing, if there be any bright side. Tell them good times will come. Tell them that for the children of God there is immortal rescue. Wake them up out of their stolidity by an inspiring laugh, and while you send in practical help, like the Queen of Sheba, also send in the spices. There are two ways of meeting the poor. One is to come into their house with a nose elevated in disgust, as much as to say: I dont see how you live here in this neighbourhood. It actually makes me sick. There is that bundle; take it, you poor miserable wretch, and make the most of it. Another way is to go into the abode of the poor in a manner which seems to say: The blessed Lord sent me. He was poor Himself. It is not more for the good I am going to try to do you than it is for the good that you can do me. Coming in that spirit, the gift will be as aromatic as the spikenard on the feet of Christ, and all the hovels in that alley will be fragrant with the spice. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
Spiced life
The fact is that the duties and cares of this life, coming to us from time to time, are stupid often, and inane and intolerable. Here are men who have been battering, climbing, pounding, hammering for twenty years, forty years, fifty years. One great, long drudgery has their life been. Their face anxious, their feelings benumbed, their days monotonous. What is necessary to brighten up that mans life, and to sweeten that acid disposition, and to put sparkle into the mans spirits? The spicery of our holy religion. Why, it between the losses of life there dashed a gleam of an eternal gain; if between the betrayals of life there came the gleam of the undying friendship of Christ; it in dull times in business we found ministering spirits flying to and fro in our office, and store, and shop, every-day life, instead of being a stupid monotone, would be a glorious inspiration, penduluming between calm satisfaction and high rapture. How any woman keeps house without the religion of Christ to help her is a mystery to me. To have to spend the greater part of ones life, as many women do, in planning for the meals, and stitching garments that will soon be rent again, and deploring breakages, and supervising tardy subordinates, and driving off dust that soon again will settle, and doing the same thing day in and day out, and year in and year out, until the hair silvers, and the back stoops, and the spectacles crawl to the eyes, and the grave breaks open under the thin sole of the shoe–oh, it is a long monotony! But when Christ comes to the drawing-room, and comes to the kitchen, and comes to the nursery, and comes to the dwelling, then how cheery become all womanly duties! She is never alone now. Martha gets through fretting and joins Mary at the feet of Jesus. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
[See comments on 1Ki 10:8].
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(9) Spices.Bsmm, from which come our words balsam and balm.
Great abundance.See Note on 2Ch. 9:1. Here lrb is substituted for the ancient harbh.
Neither was there any such spice.Or, there had not been such spicery, i.e., in Jerusalem. A defect in the chroniclers MS. authority probably occasioned this deviation from the phrase which we find in the older text, There came no more such abundance of spicery (1Ki. 10:10).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
2Ch 9:9 And 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.
Ver. 9. And she gave the king. ] See 1Ki 9:14 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
2Ch 9:9-12
2Ch 9:9-12
QUEEN OF SHEBA AND SOLOMON EXCHANGE GIFTS
“And she gave the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold, and spices in great abundance, and precious stones: neither was there any such spice as the queen of Sheba gave to king Solomon. And the servants also of Huram, and the servants of Solomon, that brought gold from Ophir, brought algum trees and precious stones. And the king made of the algum trees terraces for the house of Jehovah, and for the king’s house, and harps and psalteries for the singers: and there was none such seen before in the land of Judah. And king Solomon gave to the queen of Sheba all her desire, whatsoever she asked, besides that which she had brought to the king. So she turned and went to her own land, she and her servants.”
E.M. Zerr:
2Ch 9:9. See my comments on Gen 32:13 for the explanation of why the queen made these gifts to Solomon.
2Ch 9:10. See 2Ch 8:17-18 concerning this gold. The comments on the following verse will explain the algum trees.
2Ch 9:11. The algum is called also the almug tree. According to Smith’s Bible Dictionary, it was a wood with line grain, and was of a beautiful garnet color. Terraces comes from a word that means a staircase. The timber of the algum tree would be well adapted for that use. Being hard and fine grained, it would be suitable also for the making of the musical instruments.
2Ch 9:12. See the comments I have offered at 1Ki 10:13 and 1Ch 29:3 for explanation of this misunderstood passage.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
she gave: 2Ch 9:24, 1Ki 9:14, 1Ki 10:10, Psa 72:10, Psa 72:15
of spices: 2Ch 9:1, Gen 43:11, Exo 30:34
Sheba: This queen is called Balkis by the Arabians, who say she came from the city of Sheba, also called Mareb, in Yemen or Arabia Felix; but the Ethiopians call her Maqueda, claim her as their sovereign, and say that her posterity reigned there for a long time. Mr. Bruce has given us the history of her and her descendants from Abyssinian records; and Josephus says that Sheba was the ancient name of the city of Meroe – south of Egypt, and sometimes comprehended in Ethiopia and that this princess came from thence. Those who think the princess came from Arabia, rely chiefly on the fact that gold, silver, spices, and precious stones, which were the presents she made to Solomon, are the natural products of that country; and that it may well be placed at the uttermost part of the earth, as it borders on the southern ocean, and formerly they knew no land beyond it.
Reciprocal: 2Ch 32:23 – presents Son 4:14 – the chief Isa 39:2 – precious things Rev 18:13 – cinnamon
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
2Ch 9:9. She gave the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold, &c. This was indeed a royal gift, for the gold alone amounted to more than sixty-nine thousand pounds sterling.