Tag Archives: Yemen

Hard Questions

𐩣𐩧𐩨/𐩣𐩧𐩺𐩨

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree . . .
Coleridge: Kubla Khan

Sheba’s wailing Queen laments for Yemen:

Her incense trees are lacerated, scarred.

Sapped for their fragrance, drained of life and marred

Their smoking blood offered up to heaven.

No sinuous rills flow forth to bless the dead;

Beneath her ruined dam no gardens grow;

And Bedouins only sing of what they know

In wastelands of the nomad past. It’s said

That all those spices, all that golden smoke

and irrigated dreams beneath the sand

were just a subtle Solomonic joke.

The yearly weight of gold, the camel-trains,

Are cryptic numbers—chanted in refrains

That only Marib’s phantoms understand.

 

PROMPT #4: write a poem based on an image from a dream.

Sinister Solomonic Insinuations

ethiopian crucifix    Eth Icon    GOLD666

Etiopia Yemen

WE cannot tell exactly who the Queen of the South was,
nor exactly where Sheba lay. The expression used is Yemen, the south. Yemen is the name of a part of Arabia Felix and it would appear from the spices which the Queen brought with her that she came from that region. At the same time, the Abyssinians claim her as having been their queen. They say that she was converted through her conversations with Solomon, that afterwards the faith of God was preserved in the country, and hence that that famous Ethiopian, who was a eunuch of great authority under Candace in later times, was a proselyte to the Jewish faith on account of that faith existing in Abyssinia. 

A Greater Than Solomon 
[Sermon #3166 by Charles Spurgeon – published October 14, 1909]
www.spurgeongems.org

And King Solomon gave to the queen of Sheba all that she desired, whatever she asked besides what was given her by the bounty of King Solomon. So she turned and went back to her own land with her servants. Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was 666 talents of gold, besides that which came from the explorers and from the business of the merchants, and from all the kings of the west and from the governors of the land.

1 Kings 10:13-15 [ESV]

No mention shall be made of coral, or of pearls:
for the price of wisdom is above rubies.
The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it,
neither shall it be valued with pure gold.

Job 28: 18-19 [KJV]

This calls for wisdom:
let the one who has understanding
calculate the number of the beast,
for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.

Revelation 13:18

ICON IMAGE CREDIT: Simaschew Mesfin, from  http://www.betsyporter.com

Sinister Solomonic Insinuations

ethiopian crucifix    Eth Icon    GOLD666

Etiopia Yemen

WE cannot tell exactly who the Queen of the South was,
nor exactly where Sheba lay. The expression used is Yemen, the south. Yemen is the name of a part of Arabia Felix and it would appear from the spices which the Queen brought with her that she came from that region. At the same time, the Abyssinians claim her as having been their queen. They say that she was converted through her conversations with Solomon, that afterwards the faith of God was preserved in the country, and hence that that famous Ethiopian, who was a eunuch of great authority under Candace in later times, was a proselyte to the Jewish faith on account of that faith existing in Abyssinia. 

A Greater Than Solomon 
[Sermon #3166 by Charles Spurgeon – published October 14, 1909]
www.spurgeongems.org

And King Solomon gave to the queen of Sheba all that she desired, whatever she asked besides what was given her by the bounty of King Solomon. So she turned and went back to her own land with her servants. Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was 666 talents of gold, besides that which came from the explorers and from the business of the merchants, and from all the kings of the west and from the governors of the land.

1 Kings 10:13-15 [ESV]

No mention shall be made of coral, or of pearls:
for the price of wisdom is above rubies.
The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it,
neither shall it be valued with pure gold.

Job 28: 18-19 [KJV]

This calls for wisdom:
let the one who has understanding
calculate the number of the beast,
for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.

Revelation 13:18

ICON IMAGE CREDIT: Simaschew Mesfin, from  http://www.betsyporter.com