1Ki 10:4-5
She saw הבּית, i.e., Solomon’s palace, not the temple, and “the food of his table,” i.e., both the great variety of food that was placed upon the king’s table (1Ki 5:2-3), and also the costly furniture of the table (1Ki 10:21), and “the seat of his retainers and the standing of his servants,” i.e., the places in the palace assigned to the ministers and servants of the king, which were contrived with wisdom and arranged in a splendid manner. עבדים are the chief officers of the king, viz., ministers, counsellors, and aides de camp; משׁרתים, the court servants; מושׁב, the rooms of the courtiers in attendance; מעמד, the standing-place, i.e., the rooms of the inferior servants, “and their clothing,” which they received from the king; and משׁקיו, not his cup-bearers (lxx, Vulg.), but as in Gen 40:21, the drink, i.e., probably the whole of the drinking arrangements; ועלתו, and his ascent, by which he was accustomed to go into the house of Jehovah. עלה does not mean burnt-offering here, as the older translators have rendered it, but ascent, as in Eze 40:26, and as the Chronicles have correctly explained it by עליּתו. For burnt-offering is not to be thought of in this connection, because the queen had nothing to see or to be astonished at in the presentation of such an offering. עלתו is most likely “the king’s outer entrance” into the temple, mentioned in 2Ki 16:18; and the passage before us would lead us to suppose that this was a work of art, or an artistic arrangement. וגו היה ולא, “and there was no more spirit in her:” she was beside herself with amazement, as in Jos 5:1; Jos 2:11.