Her Majesty’s name is Queen Makeda (Queen of Sheba) who visited King Solomon in his palace in Jerusalem to test the king’s wisdom. She arrived with a large group of attendants and a great caravan of camels loaded with spices, large quantities of gold, and precious jewels. When she met with Solomon, she talked with him about everything she had on her mind. Solomon had answers to all her questions; nothing was too hard for the king to explain to her. When the queen of Sheba realized how very wise Solomon was, and when she saw the palace he had built, she was overwhelmed. She was also amazed at the food on his tables, the organization of his officials and their splendid clothing, the cup-bearers, and the burnt offerings Solomon made at the Temple of the Lord.
She gave the king a gift of 9,000 pounds of gold, great quantities of spices, and precious jewels. Never again were so many spices brought in as those Queen Makeda gave to King Solomon. In return, King Solomon gave the queen of Sheba whatever she asked for – gifts of greater value than the gifts she had given him, including himself. Then she and all her attendants returned to their land.
The most extensive version of the Queen of Sheba appears in the Kebra Nagast (Glory of the Kings), the Ethiopian national story of achievements. Menelik I is the child of Solomon and Makeda; she is the child of the man who destroys the legendary snake-king Arwe from whom the Ethiopian dynasty descent to the present day. The Abyssinian story offers much greater detail, including her wisdom and dark and dazzling beauty which made her more appealing to King Solomon who was just as dark and beaming.
Based on the Gospels of Matthew (Matthew 12:42) and Luke (Luke 11:31), the "queen of the South" is the queen of Ethiopia.
Makeda stayed in the palace overnight, after Solomon had sworn that he would not do her any harm, while she swore in return that she would not steal from him. As the meals had been spicy, Makeda awoke thirsty at night and went to drink some water, when Solomon appeared, reminding her of her oath. She answered: "Ignore your oath, just let me drink water." That same night, Solomon had a dream about the sun rising over Israel, but being mistreated and despised by the Jews, the sun moved to shine over Ethiopia. Solomon gave Makeda a ring as a token of faith, and then she left. On her way home, she gave birth to a son, whom she named Baina-leḥkem (i.e. bin al-ḥakīm, "Son of the Wise Man", later called Menilek).
After the boy had grown up in Ethiopia, he went to Jerusalem carrying the ring and was received with great honours. The king and the people tried in vain to persuade him to stay. Solomon gathered his nobles and announced that he would send his first-born son to Ethiopia together with their first-born sons. Then Baina-leḥkem was anointed king by Zadok the high priest, and he took the name David. The first-born nobles who followed him are named, and even today some Ethiopian families claim their ancestry from them.
Prior to leaving, the priests' sons had stolen the Ark of the Covenant, after their leader Azaryas had offered a sacrifice as commanded by one God's angel. With much wailing, the procession left Jerusalem on a wind cart led and carried by the archangel Michael. Having arrived at the Red Sea, Azaryas revealed to the people that the Ark is with them. David prayed to the Ark and the people rejoiced, singing, dancing, blowing horns and flutes, and beating drums. The Ark showed its miraculous powers during the crossing of the stormy Sea, and all arrived unscathed. When Solomon learned that the Ark had been stolen, he sent a horseman after the thieves and even gave chase himself, but neither could catch them. Solomon returned to Jerusalem and gave orders to the priests to remain silent about the theft and to place a copy of the Ark in the Temple so that the foreign nations could not say that Israel had lost its fame.
Queen Makeda was part of the dynasty founded by Za Besi Angabo in 1370 BC. The family's intended choice to rule Aksum was Makeda's brother, Prince Nourad, but his early death led to her succession to the throne. She apparently ruled the Ethiopian kingdom for more than 50 years. The 1922 regnal list of Ethiopia claims that Makeda reigned from 1013 to 982 BC, with dates following the 13 months Ethiopian calendar.
In the Ethiopian Book of Aksum, Makeda is described as establishing a new capital city at Azeba. Historians believe that the Solomonic Dynasty actually began in 1270 with the emperor Yekuno Amlak, who, with the support of the Ethiopian Church, overthrew the Zagwe dynasty, which had ruled Ethiopia since sometime during the 10th century. The link to King Solomon provided a strong foundation for Ethiopian national unity. "Ethiopians see their country as God's chosen country, the final resting place that he chose for the Ark – and Sheba and her son were the means by which it came there". Despite the fact that the dynasty officially ended in 1769 with Emperor Iyoas, Ethiopian rulers continued to trace their connection to it, right up to the last 20th-century emperor, Haile Selassie.
According to one tradition, the Ethiopian Jews (Beta Israel, "Falashas") also trace their ancestry to Menelik I, son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. An opinion that appears more historical is that the Falashas descend from those Jews who settled in Egypt after the first exile, the Assyrian exile of the 10 tribes of Israel, and who, upon the fall of the Persian domination (539–333 BC), on the borders of the Nile, penetrated into Sudan, whence they went into the western parts of Abyssinia that are now known as the West Coast Africa. And the Babylonian exile, the second exile, is where Nebuchadnezzar took ten thousand elite members of the dynasty of the tribe of Judah and some of the best warriors and craftsmen, and the rest of the tribe of Judah and Benjamin were forced to run their lives into Egypt, (After Ishmael son of Nethaniah, of the royal family, killed Gedaliah – 2 Kings 25:22-26) where they were not welcomed and proceeded on to the West Coast Africa.
Manelik I
Menelik I was the first Emperor of Ethiopia. According to Kebra Nagast, a 14th-century national epic, in the 10th century BC, he is said to have inaugurated the Solomonic dynasty of Ethiopia, so named because Menelik I was the son of the biblical King Solomon of ancient Israel and of Makeda, the Queen of Sheba.
According to the medieval Ethiopian book, Kebra Nagast, written in 1321 CE, Manelik I,(“Son of the Wise") was conceived when his father Solomon tricked his visiting mother, the Queen of Sheba, into sleeping with him. His mother raised him as a Jew in her homeland and he only travelled to Jerusalem to meet his father for the first time when he was in his twenties. While his father begged Menelik to stay and rule over Israel, Menelik told him that he wanted to return home. Thus, Solomon sent many Israelites with him, to aid him in ruling according to biblical standards; which were aggrieved at being exiled forever. One recount is that King Solomon gave his Ark of the Covenant to his son as a gift, while another states Solomon attempted to regain the Ark but was unable to due to its supernatural properties aiding Menelik. Upon the death of his mother, or upon her abdication in his favour, Menelik was crowned King of Ethiopia. According to one Ethiopian tradition, Menelik was born at Mai-Bela near the village of Addi-Shmagle located northwest of Asmara, in Eritrea.
Author: Bidkar Vicoh
Sources: Wikipedia, New Living Translation Bible
Images: by Pinterest, Glam Africa
No comments:
Post a Comment