SOLOMON'S ARK

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 18975, 27 March 1936, Page 16

SOLOMON'S ARK

IS IN ETHIOPIA PRINCESS' CLAIM LONDON, .Tan. 30. Princess Asfa Yilma, member of ilio Royal'.Solomonic House of Ethiopia, and. the wife of a British officer, believes that the Ark of the Covenant, stolen from King Solomon's Temple .in Jerusalem nearly 3000 years ago, is How in the possession of the Ethiopian Church. She also believes that so long as the Ark remains there the Italians cannot, conquer Abyssinia. Sheba, according to the Ethiopians, was part of Abyssinia, and not in South Arabia, as it is generally .supposed to have been. | The princess tells the story of the Ark, according to the Ethiopian tradition, in a book published to-day, '' Haile Selassie.'' PRINCE'S QUEST According to the Ethiopian tradition, the Queen of Sheba, after her .visit to Solomon in Jerusalem, became I the mother of a son who was named Ebnu Hakim. | The boy grew up a great hunter, and when he asked about his father his mother told him that Solomon [lived a long way oft. The young .prince declared that he would go and i find him. | He wont, with a big caravan. His likeness to Solomon was so striking that Solomon and every one else in Jerusalem knew at first sight iwho he war>. Solomon embraced him and exclaimed: "He is handsomer I than I, and his form and stature are those ..of David, my father, in his early .manhood." i Ebna Hakim gave Solomon the ring Solomon had given to his mother, and asked Solomon for the fringe of the Ark of the Covenant, which the Queen of Sheba desired, .so that her people might worship it. Solomon urged his son to remain with him, but Ebna Hakim grew tired of Jerusalem and begged leave to return to Ethiopia. Solomon at last agreed, and commanded that his counsellors should send their eldest sons with Ebna Hakim to servo him in his own country. GOLD AND JEWELS Solomon gave his son gold, silver, precious stones, horses, camels, chariots, mules and wagons for the long journey. Ebna Hakim's advisers, the sons of

Solomon's counsellors, were afraid that when they left Jerusalem, the resting-place of the Ark of the Covenant, the Almighty would no longer protect them, and Azarias, the son of jZadok the High Priest, having sworn the others to secrecy, proposed that they should take the Ark with them. j His plan was that, they should steal it from the Temple at night, and leave a substitute in its place. This plan was carried, out. But Ebna Hakim was not told until the caravan reached Ethiopia. When the Queen of Sheba saw the Ark she renounced her throne in favour of her son, and made the nobles swear that never again would they sot a woman upon the throne.

From the day when the Ark left Jerusalem the power of Israel began to decline, while the power of Ethiopia grew greater and greater.