You’re not missing a thing. The Bible says nothing about sexual relations between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, about her returning to Ethiopia pregnant with Solomon’s child, or about a race of Ethiopian Jews spawned by their offspring.
The accounts of the Queen of Sheba’s visit to King Solomon may be read in 1 Kings 10:1-13 and 2 Chronicles 9:1-12. Also, our Lord makes reference to the Queen of Sheba’s visit to King Solomon in Matthew 12:42. Here, Jesus says to the sign-seeking Pharisees, “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.”
When it comes to the Song of Solomon or the Song of Songs, the suggestion by some that Solomon’s lover is the Queen of Sheba is without any Scriptural foundation. According to the Scripture, the king’s lover is a Shulamite and a country girl, not the Queen of Sheba (Song of Solomon 1:6; 6:13; 7:11-12). I personally believe that she was Abishag, the beautiful young woman from Shunem who was chosen to care for King David in his final days (1 Kings 1:1-4). Remember, Solomon had his half brother, Adonijah, executed after their father’s death for requesting permission to marry Abishag (1 Kings 2:13-25).
Ethiopian Jews like to refer to themselves as “Beta Israel,” which is Ge’ez (Ethiopic) for “House of Israel.” Other Ethiopians refer to them as “Falashas,” which means “strangers” or “landless” in Amharic—the official language of Ethiopia. Regardless of how they dub themselves or are dubbed by others, Ethiopian Jews are a people of uncertain origin who have practiced a form of Judaism in central Ethiopia since ancient times.
It has been proposed by some that Ethiopia’s Beta Israel may date back to Moses’ marriage to an Ethiopian woman (Numbers 12:1). While this may be stretching it a bit too far, it is no stretch at all to date Ethiopian Jews back to the 1st century, as is attested to by the New Testament story of the Ethiopian Eunuch (Acts 8:26-39). Although impossible to pinpoint, the fact that Ethiopian Jews do not observe Purim, which dates back to the 5th century BC, and Hanukkah, which dates back to the 2nd century BC, may suggest an origin prior to the establishment of these two Jewish festivals when Ethiopian Jews no longer had communication with their western counterparts.
There is certainly no shortage of theories and traditions concerning the origin of Ethiopian Jews, such as those that allege that they are descendants of one of the lost tribes of Israel, in particularly the descendants of the lost tribe of Dan. Yet, no theory is more sensational than the one alleging that they are descended from the offspring of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. There is even an “Indiana Jones” element added to this tradition. According to some, the Queen of Sheba not only returned from her visit with King Solomon pregnant with his child, but also bearing the Ark of the Covenant to Ethiopia for safekeeping.
Despite the fact that these theories and traditions serve as excellent fodder for the sensational fires of today’s prophecy wonks, they lack any basis in fact. For instance, DNA studies have shown that Ethiopian Jews differ from conventional Jewish populations and are descended from non-Jewish inhabitants of ancient Ethiopia. Though their ancestors were undoubtedly converts to Judaism, they were certainly not Jewish.
In 1975, the Israeli government recognized the Beta Israel people of Ethiopia as “official” Jews, granting to them full immigration rights under Israel’s Law of Return. Since that time, 85% of Ethiopia’s Beta Israel community has emigrated to Israel. Of the 120,000 Ethiopian immigrants who have come to Israel, many have emigrated during Israeli rescue operations specifically conducted to save them from civil war and famine in Ethiopia, such as Operation Moses in 1984 and Operation Solomon in 1991. Ethiopia’s present Beta Israel community is estimated to be around 20,000 people, making it a mere 0.027% of the Ethiopian population.
