Dr Paul Allen

Image via Wikipedia "And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the LORD, she came to prove him with hard questions." ( 1 Kings 10:1 )   A thousand years after the famous visit of Sheba's queen to the court of King Solomon , Jesus made a remarkable spiritual application of her experience. "The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon ; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here" ( Matthew 12:42 ).   Solomon had prayed for wisdom, and the Lord gave him such legendary wisdom that the news even reached the distant land of Sheba, south of Ethiopia. We do not know what hard questions were confronting Sheba's queen at the time, but she finally decided she must find their solutions through Solomon and his God . God honored her searching faith, "and Solomon told her all her questions,"

Image via Wikipedia "Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to build him an house at  Jerusalem , which is in Judah." ( Ezra 1:2 )   It is noteworthy that the words of this verse are almost the same as in the last verse of 2 Chronicles. This is an indication that Ezra the scribe (who wrote the book of Ezra ) was also the compiler and editor of the two books of Chronicles .   E Image by james.gordon6108 via Flickr ven more noteworthy is the fact that the great emperor Cyrus seemed to acknowledge that the God of Israel was not just a tribal god, as many have claimed, but the Lord God of heaven--that is  Jehovah Elohim --recognizing Him as both Creator and Redeemer of the world.  The Persians were largely followers of Zoroaster, but his religious system did bear some resemblance to the true monotheism of Israel.   But Cyrus had been called, and even named, by God, long before he was born (