Queen

Queens in the Old Testament occupied a variety of roles. The queen consort was the wife of the king, but in Israelite practice the king's mother — the gebirah or queen mother — often held greater influence and formal status than the wives. Maachah (1 Kings 15:13) and Athaliah (2 Kings 11:1–20) illustrate the queen mother's power, and the queen mother held an official seat at court. The Psalms celebrate the queen consort in Psalm 45:9 standing at the king's right hand "in gold of Ophir." In the New Testament, Jesus refers to the "queen of the south" — the Queen of Sheba — as a Gentile who came to hear Solomon's wisdom and who will rise in judgment against his unbelieving contemporaries (Matthew 12:42; Luke 11:31).

Foreign queens appear prominently in Scripture. Jezebel, the Phoenician queen of Ahab, wielded extensive power in Israel and became the archetype of pagan influence in a covenant kingdom (1 Kings 21; Revelation 2:20). Esther, though a queen by marriage in a foreign court, used her position to save her people. Song of Solomon 6:8 mentions sixty queens among those who praised the beloved, using royal imagery for the exalted status of the one whom the king loves above all.