(9) Spices.--B's?mim, from which come our words balsam and balm.

Great abundance.--See Note on 2Chronicles 9:1. Here l?r?b is substituted for the ancient harb?h.

Neither was there any such spice.--Or, there had not been such spicery, i.e., in Jerusalem. A defect in the chronicler's MS. authority probably occasioned this deviation from the phrase which we find in the older text, "There came no more such abundance of spicery" (1Kings 10:10).

Verse 9. - An hundred and twenty talents of gold. Putting the value of gold at £4 per ounce, the value of one talent would be £5476, making a total of £657,120. Poole makes it £1,250,000; S. Clarke, f 720,000. From our vers. 13, 14 we learn that in one year Solomon received 666 talents, beside what merchants brought. Any such spice. The parallel has "no more such abundance of spices," and "of spices very great store." The Arabian spices, and their land and even sea borne fragrance, as also the very lucrative trade they created, are often alluded to by historians (see, among many others, Herod., 3:113; Diod., 3:46; Strabo, 16:4, § 19). Much of all this so-termed giving was evidently matter of exchange. The queen got quid pro quo, while ver. 13 of the parallel (1 Kings 10.) seems to speak of the other truer giving.

9:1-12 This history has been considered, 1Ki 10; yet because our Saviour has proposed it as an example in seeking after him, Mt 12:42, we must not pass it over without observing, that those who know the worth of true wisdom will grudge no pains or cost to obtain it. The queen of Sheba put herself to a great deal of trouble and expense to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and yet, learning from him to serve God, and do her duty, she thought herself well paid for her pains. Heavenly wisdom is that pearl of great price, for which, if we part with all, we make a good bargain.See Chapter Introduction