2 Chronicles9:1–12

The same visit, told twice: Chronicles beside 1 Kings 10 verbal / quotation: confirmed

⚙ This pericope and 1 Kings 10:1-13 are two tellings of one episode, and the Verifier's lexeme bases make the overlap concrete rather than impressionistic. K&D put the relation as strongly as it can honestly be put: the two narratives agree so exactly that “we must regard them as literal extracts from an original document which they have used in common.” Barnes reaches the same verdict from the other direction, that the Chronicler's account “varies but little, and to which it adds nothing.” Ellicott, Cambridge and Pulpit then spend most of their notes on the small divergences, and those divergences are where the Chronicler's own theology shows: the dropped phrase about the Name in v. 1, the throne made Jehovah's own in v. 8, the substituted lā·rōḇ, the shortened paraphrase in v. 11, and “the land of Judah” where Israel would be expected.

1 Kings 10:1 · 1 Kings 10:5 · 1 Kings 10:10 · 1 Kings 10:13

basis: Verifier: 1 Kings 10:1 shares H7614 Shᵉbâʼ (in 23 vv), H5254 nâçâh (in 34 vv), H4436 malkâh (in 34 vv); 1 Kings 10:5 shares H4945 mashqeh (in 18 vv), H8334 shârath (in 92 vv), H3978 maʼăkâl (in 29 vv); 1 Kings 10:10 shares H1314 besem (in 25 vv), H2091 zâhâb, H7614 Shᵉbâʼ; 1 Kings 10:13 shares H7614, H4436, H8010. Several of these lexemes are uncommon (mashqeh in 18 vv, Shᵉbâʼ in 23, besem in 25), and K&D judge the two texts literal extracts from a common document, so the link is verbal, not merely thematic.

Algum wood: a three-verse noun that binds this chapter to the temple contract verbal / quotation: confirmed

⚙ אַלְגּוּמִּ֖ים (ʼalgûwmmîym, H418) occurs in only three verses of the canon, and one of the others is Solomon's request to Hiram at 2 Chronicles 2:8. The Verifier records the shared lexeme together with ʻêts (H6086, “a tree, from its firmness”), which is the construct pairing used in both places. Cambridge makes the cross-reference explicitly, noting Kings spells the word “almug” and pointing back to 2 Chronicles 2:8. The link is therefore not thematic resemblance but the reappearance of a rare technical term: the wood ordered for the building programme is the wood now shaped into stairways, lyres and harps. Ellicott's survey of candidate species (red sandalwood, white sandalwood, coral in the Mishnah, teak on Thenius's conjecture) shows the tradition cannot say what the tree was, which makes the lexical thread the only solid thing here.

2 Chronicles 2:8

basis: Verifier: shared H418 ʼalgûwmmîym (in 3 vv, a genuinely rare lexeme) plus H6086 ʻêts (in 288 vv) in the same construct pairing. Cambridge independently cross-references 2 Chronicles 2:8 at 9:10. Rare shared lexeme, not a quotation of one text by the other.

Maʻămâd: the “station” of a courtier and the station of the Levites verbal / quotation: confirmed

⚙ וּמַעֲמַ֨ד (maʻămâd, H4612, “(figuratively) a position”) is one of the rarest nouns in the pericope: the Verifier finds it in five verses in the whole canon, and three of them are cited by Pulpit at 9:4. In Chronicles the other two occurrences describe the station of Levites in the service of the house of the LORD (1 Chronicles 23:28) and the stations of the singing descendants of Asaph at Josiah's passover (2 Chronicles 35:15); at Isaiah 22:19 it is the position Shebna is ousted from. Set beside Pulpit's finding that mᵉšārᵉṯāw in the same verse almost always “expresses ministry of sacred service of some kind,” the rare noun supports a real observation about the Chronicler's style: he paints Solomon's court in temple vocabulary. 2 Chronicles 35:15 shares a second lexeme with this unit, shîyr (H7891, the singers of 9:11), which tightens the tie.

1 Chronicles 23:28 · 2 Chronicles 35:15 · Isaiah 22:19

basis: Verifier: shared H4612 maʻămâd (in 5 vv, rare) with all three refs; 2 Chronicles 35:15 additionally shares H7891 shîyr (in 79 vv). A rare shared lexeme, Hebrew to Hebrew. No quotation is claimed in either direction, and the inference about temple vocabulary is ⚙ synthesis built on Pulpit's count of shârath.

Marbîyth: the Chronicler's own word for “the greatness” verbal / quotation: confirmed

⚙ In v. 6 the queen says not half of the מַרְבִּ֣ית (marbîyth, H4768, “a multitude”) of Solomon's wisdom was told her. Ellicott identifies the word as the Chronicler's explanatory addition to the shorter text of Kings and points the reader to 2 Chronicles 30:18 and 1 Chronicles 12:29 for it, observing that it “occurs thrice in the Chronicles and twice elsewhere.” The Verifier's frequency confirms the rarity: five verses in the canon. The two occurrences outside Chronicles are the law forbidding an Israelite's food to be sold at increase (Leviticus 25:37, BSB “for profit”) and the doom on Eli's house, where the word stands behind “All your descendants will die by the sword of men” (1 Samuel 2:33): in both, marbîyth is the whole increase of a thing. Here it is the whole increase of a wisdom, and the queen was told half of it. The thread is worth keeping because it is one of the clearest small proofs that the Chronicler is writing, and not merely copying: his hand is visible in a rare noun.

2 Chronicles 30:18 · Leviticus 25:37 · 1 Samuel 2:33

basis: Verifier: shared H4768 marbîyth (in 5 vv, rare) with all three refs. Ellicott independently names 2 Chronicles 30:18 and counts the word's occurrences. A rare shared lexeme; the three passages have no thematic relation and no quotation is claimed.

Camels out of Sheba: the nations bringing gold and spice structural / thematic: confirmed

⚙ The inventory of v. 1 and v. 9 (Sheba, camels, spices, gold) recurs in the prophets as the standing picture of foreign wealth carried toward the LORD. Ezekiel 27:22 names Sheba among Tyre's traders in spice, gold and precious stones; Isaiah 60:6 has camels covering the land and all from Sheba coming, bearing gold and frankincense. The Verifier supplies the lexeme bases for both. Cambridge, at 9:1, cross-references Psalm 72:10, where the kings of Sheba and Seba offer gifts, and Pulpit lists Job 6:19, Psalm 72:10 and 15, Isaiah 60:6, Jeremiah 6:20 and Ezekiel 27 among the Sheba passages. The claim here is deliberately kept structural: the shared words are the ordinary vocabulary of trade (gold occurs in 336 verses, camels in 51), and what makes the link real is the recurring combination of Sheba with camels, gold and spice, not any quotation.

Isaiah 60:6 · Ezekiel 27:22 · Psalm 72:10

basis: Verifier: Isaiah 60:6 shares H2091 zâhâb (in 336 vv), H7614 Shᵉbâʼ (in 23 vv), H1581 gâmâl (in 51 vv); Ezekiel 27:22 shares H1314 besem (in 25 vv), H2091 zâhâb, H7614 Shᵉbâʼ. Psalm 72:10 carries no Verifier-computed lexeme basis here and is included on Cambridge's own cross-reference at 9:1. Shared motif of Sheba's tribute, deliberately not tiered verbal because the common lexemes apart from Shᵉbâʼ are high-frequency trade words.

“One greater than Solomon”: the Queen of the South at the judgment structural / thematic: confirmed

⚙ The Lord Jesus takes this episode up in Matthew 12:42 and Luke 11:31, where the Queen of the South rises at the judgment and condemns a generation, “for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and now One greater than Solomon is here.” Henry builds his whole note on it, saying we must not pass the history over “because our Saviour has proposed it as an example in seeking after him, Mt 12:42,” and Pulpit lists Matthew 12:42 and Luke 11:31 among the references to Sheba. The correspondence is exact at the points this pericope stresses: a foreigner, a distance travelled, and wisdom heard. It cannot be tiered verbal. The Verifier, run on the pair, returns no shared original-language lexeme, and it cannot return one: this unit is Hebrew and the Gospel sayings are Greek, so a shared Strong's number is structurally impossible. The two Gospel verses are a Synoptic parallel to each other, and the citation of the queen is explicit and undisputed in them; what is structural rather than verbal is the link from them back to the Hebrew of Chronicles.

Matthew 12:42 · Luke 11:31

basis: Verifier on 2 Chronicles 9:1 paired with Matthew 12:42 and with Luke 11:31 returns no shared lexeme in either case, which is expected: cross-Testament pairs cannot share Strong's numbers. The recorded basis is therefore the explicit narrative citation in the Gospel sayings (the Queen of the South who came to hear Solomon's wisdom), noted by Henry and listed by Pulpit, held at structural tier because no lexical link is computable.

Something greater than Solomon, and a foreigner who came the distance ancient/widely-held

⚙ The Chronicler's episode is left open on purpose: a queen tests a report, finds it true, blesses Jehovah, and goes home, and nothing is said of her faith. The Lord Jesus closes it, and closes it against his own hearers. In Matthew 12:42 and Luke 11:31 the Queen of the South rises at the judgment and condemns a generation, because she crossed the earth for wisdom that was less than what now stood in front of them. Henry is explicit that this is why the chapter cannot be skipped, that “our Saviour has proposed it as an example in seeking after him, Mt 12:42,” and he draws the practical edge: “those who know the worth of true wisdom will grudge no pains or cost to obtain it.” The reading is as old as the saying itself and is the common property of the tradition. Two features of the Hebrew make it more than an illustration. The pericope's whole argument is that a report must be come to and seen, and its climax is a wisdom heard continually by servants who happened to live near it, which is exactly the indictment the Lord lays on a generation with the greater wisdom in its own streets.

Matthew 12:42 · Luke 11:31

Wisdom bought at cost: the pearl and the hidden treasures ancient/widely-held

⚙ Henry's reading of the unit is frankly redemptive: the queen's expense is a figure of what wisdom is worth, and “Heavenly wisdom is that pearl of great price, for which, if we part with all, we make a good bargain.” He is reading the parable of Matthew 13:46 onto the camels and talents. The Chronicler supplies the ground for it without stating the conclusion: her chayil, her heavy force of gold and spice, buys her an audience, and what she takes home besides her gifts is the sight of wisdom at work. Colossians 2:3 sets the same accounting in Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, which is where the Chronicler's visible wisdom (a table, a stairway, a court) finally leads. This is a figural reading and is stated as one, but it is the received reading of the passage in the Puritan tradition and rests on the Lord's own transfer of the episode to himself.

Matthew 13:46 · Colossians 2:3

A throne that was never Solomon's: the Chronicler's vicegerency read forward novel

⚙ The most Christologically loaded sentence in the unit is not about wisdom at all. In v. 8 the queen says Jehovah set Solomon “on his throne,” and Ellicott, Cambridge, Benson, Poole and Geneva agree on the sense: the throne is God's and the king sits as deputy. Cambridge: “The Israelite throne is God’s ; the visible king occupies it only as a deputy,” and he cites the Chronicler's own idiom at 1 Chronicles 28:5 and 29:23. Ellicott notes that the Chronicler supplies “to be king for the LORD thy God” where Kings had only “the throne of Israel.” Read forward, that is the frame in which a Davidic king who is himself the Lord of the throne would not be an anomaly but the resolution: the deputy's seat finally occupied by its owner. The honesty note matters here. None of the ten commentators in this unit's apparatus draws that line from v. 8 to Christ; they stop at vicegerency and at the duty of kings. The extension is ⚙ synthesis and is marked novel for that reason, offered to be tested, not asserted.

1 Chronicles 28:5 · 1 Chronicles 29:23