Sheba

QUEEN OF SHEBA AND BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 161
and Belontos. Solomon’s pursuing force reached the city of Msr in the
region of Gebes, where the cavalry troop was told Menelik’s party had
reached the Takezze River at the city of Mesr. One detachment raced for
the Red Sea to determine whether Menelik had crossed. Solomon then set
out for Gaza, where an Egyptian official from Alexandria told him
Menelik’s party had passed through Cairo and taken three days to the
Takezze. This is a very unsatisfactory account. First of all Alexandria and
Cairo did not exist in Solomon’s time and were founded, respectively, 600
and 900 years after his death. The use of the term King Pharaoh, a
tautology, supports the notion that the part of the text dealing with the
Egyptian emissary is a fabrication added long after dynastic Egypt had
fallen.
Second, although it is obvious that the redactors believed Menelik’s
party crossed to Egypt via Gaza and traveled south alongside parts of the
Nile to Ethiopia, the text states that Menelik’s party crossed the Red Sea to
Ethiopia after traveling through Egypt and the waters of Ethiopia. Map 7
shows the absurdity of the text, for it demonstrates that Menelik would have
found himself a very short distance from the southern border of present day
Israel.
Third, there is doubt that Mesrin, Msr, and Gebes should all be
translated as Egypt. The remark “Gebes (Egypt), the name of which is
Mesrin” seems to have been a later elaboration by the Ge’ez scribes.
Wallis-Budge and Bezold both translated hagara msr as if Msr (Egypt)
were a country (Ge’ez = beher or medr; the word can also mean region,
province, or district) but hagar is the Ge’ez word for city. Since Menelik’s
party crossed the Red Sea after passing through Mesrin, Msr, and Gebes,
the three locations should be on the east side of the Red Sea, in Arabia, and
the text is speaking of a city named Msr not a country.
Next there are references to takazi. In chapters 53, 58, and 59, Sir E.A.
Wallis-Budge translated the word takazi to mean the Takezze River, which
rises near Lalibela in Ethiopia and joins the Atbara River at Showak in
Sudan. Bezold, considered the best authority on the text of the Kebra
Nagast, would have been fully aware of the existence of the Takezze River
but translated it as Fluss (watercourse or flow). Budge translated the text to
mean the river watered the “Valley of Egypt,” but Bezold more accurately
stated that it watered the Brook of Mesr. In Chapter 58, Bezold again
translated falaga takazi hagara msr as “nach dem Flusstale in’s Land
Mesr” [river valley in the land of Msr], and in Chapter 59 westa takazi