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.
The queen of Sheba. As to where her country was, some think it was the Sabean kingdom of Yemen, of which the capital was Saba (Mariaba, according to Eratosthenes; Sabatha according to Ptolemy; Mareb and Saba, or Azab, according to the natives), in Arabia Felix; others, that it was in African Ethiopia - i:e. Abyssinia-toward the south of the Red Sea. The opinions preponderate in favour of the former. This view harmonies with the language of our Lord, as Yemen means 'south;' and this country, extending to the shores of the Indian, Ocean, might in ancient times - i:e., in our Lord's age, when the boundaries of the known land southward were Raptam, or Prassum-be considered "the uttermost parts of the earth. [The principal reasons for concluding that the queen came from this district of Arabia may be summarized as follows:-First, the presents she brought to Solomon were products of that country, as stated by Strabo, Pliny, and others; secondly, the expression, basilissa (G938) notou (G3558), "queen of the south" (Matthew 12:42) corresponds with the Hebrew Teman, the Arabic Yemen; thirdly, the phrase, ek toon peratoon tees gees, in the same passage of Matthew, corroborates this view; fourth, the traditions of the Jewish as well as Christian Church, together with the opinions of Arabian writers, tend unitedly in the same direction. (See, the subject discussed at large in Forster's 'Arabia' and in Bruce's 'Travels in Abyssinia.')]
Heard of the fame of Solomon - doubtless by the Ophir fleet.
Concerning the name of the Lord - meaning either his great knowledge of God, or the extraordinary things which God had done for him.
Hard questions - enigmas, or riddles. The Orientals delight in this species of intellectual exercise, and test wisdom by the power and readiness to solve them.