Meluchath, meaning “kingdom”. Thus the Queen goes altogether out of the story, and the Riddles with her, though they were circulating among the people, and it took centuries before the above objections were subdued—at least with regard to the Riddles. On the other hand, it is clear from the statement in the Bible, “The Queen of Sheba . . . came to prove Solomon with hard questions” (1 Kings, x, 1; 2 Chron. ix, 1), that even in Biblical times some such riddles or puzzles were current among the people. That those which we here rescue from oblivion cannot trace back to the riddles current in Biblical times is clear from the anachronisms contained in them. The student of folk-lore is familiar with the tenacity of popular memory, and there is therefore the remote chance that similar riddles to those given in our text are referred to in the Bible. The above considerations would then explain how they failed to make any appearance in the literary productions of the Rabbis.
This exclusion from what we may call the official literature for such a long time may perhaps also account for the corrupt and incomplete condition in which these Riddles are found. We possess nowadays three versions of them: the version of the Second Targum to Esther, i, 2, consisting of three riddles; the version of the Midrash on Proverbs, i, 1, consisting of four; and the version which we now publish for the first time, consisting of nineteen riddles. The first four riddles of this version, as well as the introduction, agree on the whole with the Midrash on Proverbs. There is only this difference: that the verse from Job which is here given by R. Ishmael is quoted in the Midrash from another Rabbi of a much later date. The quotation was probably shortened by the copyist; for there can hardly be any doubt that the Rabbi’s allusion aimed at the succeeding verses in Job, in which the treasures of Ethiopia (Cush) are spoken of, which country was, as it is well known, confused by the ancients with Sheba.
We may now proceed at once to give the text and translation of the Yemen Midrash.
