But what Josephus adds presently, that no king of Egypt was called Pharaoh after Solomon's father-in-law, does hardly agree to our copies, which have long afterwards the names of Pharaoh Neehob, and Pharaoh Hophrah, 2 Kings 23:29; Jeremiah 44:30, besides the frequent mention of that name Pharaoh in the prophets.However, Josephus himself, in his own speech to the Jews, Of the War, B.V.ch.9.sect.4, speaks of Neehao, who was also called Pharaoh, as the name of that king of Egypt with whom Abraham was concerned; of which name Neehao yet we have elsewhere no mention till the days of Josiah, but only of Pharaoh.And, indeed, it must be conceded, that here, and sect.5, we have more mistakes made by Josephus, and those relating to the kings of Egypt, and to that queen of Egypt and Ethiopia, whom he supposes to have come to see Solomon, than almost any where else in all his Antiquities.
(16) That this queen of Sheba was a queen of Sabea in South Arabia, and not of Egypt and Ethiopia, as Josephus here asserts, is, I suppose, now generally agreed.And since Sabea is well known to be a country near the sea in the south of Arabia Felix, which lay south from Judea also; and since our Savior calls this queen, "the queen of the south," and says, "she came from the utmost parts of the earth," Matthew 12:42; Luke 11:31, which descriptions agree better to this Arabia than to Egypt and Ethiopia; there is little occasion for doubting in this matter.
(17) Some blame Josephus for supposing that the balsam tree might be first brought out of Arabia, or Egypt, or Ethiopia, into Judea, by this queen of Sheba, since several have said that of old no country bore this precious balsam but Judea; yet it is not only false that this balsam was peculiar to Judea but both Egypt and Arabia, and particularly Sabea; had it; which last was that very country whence Josephus, if understood not of Ethiopia, but of Arabia, intimates this queen might bring it first into Judea.
Nor are we to suppose that the queen of Sabaea could well omit such a present as this balsam tree would be esteemed by Solomon, in case it were then almost peculiar to her own country.Nor is the mention of balm or balsam, as carried by merchants, and sent as a present out of Judea by Jacob, to the governor of Egypt, Genesis 37:25; 43:11, to be alleged to the contrary, since what we there render balm or balsam, denotes rather that turpentine which we now call turpentine of Chio, or Cyprus, the juice of the turpentine tree, than this precious balm.This last is also the same word that we elsewhere render by the same mistake balm of Gilead; it should be rendered, the turpentine of Gilead, Jeremiah 8:22.
(18) Whether these fine gardens and rivulets of Etham, about six miles from Jerusalem, whither Solomon rode so often in state, be not those alluded to, Ecclesiastes 2:5, 6, where he says, "He made him gardens and orchards, and planted trees in them of all kinds of fruits: he made him pools of water, to water the wood that bringeth forth trees;" and to the finest part whereof he seems to allude, when, in the Canticles, he compares his spouse to a garden "enclosed," to a "spring shut up," to a "fountain sealed," ch.4.12 (part of which from rains are still extant, as Mr.Matmdrell informs us, page 87, 88); cannot now be certainly determined, but may very probably be conjectured.But whether this Etham has any relation to those rivers of Etham, which Providence once dried up in a miraculous manner, Psalm 74:15, in the Septuagint, I cannot say.
(19) These seven hundred wives, or the daughters of great men, and the three hundred concubines, the daughters of the ignoble, make one thousand in all; and are, I suppose, those very one thousand women intimated elsewhere by Solomon himself, when he speaks of his not having found one [good] woman among that very number, Ecclesiastes 7:28.
(20) Josephus is here certainly too severe upon Solomon, who, in ****** the cherubims, and these twelve brazen oxen, seems to have done no more than imitate the patterns left him by David, which were all given David by Divine inspiration.See my description of the temples, ch.10.And although God gave no direction for the lions that adorned his throne, yet does not Solomon seem therein to have broken any law of Moses; for although the Pharisees and latter Rabbins have extended the second commandment, to forbid the very ****** of any image, though without any intention to have it worshipped, yet do not I suppose that Solomon so understood it, nor that it ought to be so understood.The ****** any other altar for worship but that at the tabernacle was equally forbidden by Moses, Antiq.B.IV.ch.8.sect.5; yet did not the two tribes and a half offend when they made an altar for a memorial only, Joshua 22; Antiq.B.V.ch.1.sect.26, 27.
(21) Since the beginning of Solomon's evil life and adversity was the time when Hadad or Ader, who was born at least twenty or thirty years before Solomon came to the crown, in the days of David, began to give him disturbance, this implies that Solomon's evil life began early, and continued very long, which the multitude of his wives and concubines does imply also; I suppose when he was not fifty years of age.
(22) This youth of Jeroboam, when Solomon built the walls of righteous and keep the laws, because he hath proposed to thee the greatest of all rewards for thy piety, and the honor thou shalt pay to God, namely, to be as greatly exalted as thou knowest David to have been." Jerusalem, not very long after he had finished his twenty years building of the temple and his own palace, or not very long after the twenty-fourth of his reign, 1Kings 9:24; 2 Chronicles 8:11, and his youth here still mentioned, when Solomon's wickedness was become intolerable, fully confirm my former observation, that such his wickedness began early, and continued very long.See Ecclus.47:14.