Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
50 free King Solomon trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This King Solomon trivia quiz covers the biblical king remembered for wisdom, wealth and a temple that stood for four centuries. The easy questions cover his father, his mother, the building he raised in Jerusalem, the famous ruling over a disputed baby and the royal visitor from Sheba. From there the quiz moves through the story told in Kings and Chronicles: the dream at Gibeon, the priest and prophet who anointed him, Hiram of Tyre and the cedars, the seven-year build, the palace on Ophel, the fleets to Ophir and Tarshish, the 700 wives and the foreign gods that split the kingdom under Rehoboam. The hard end covers the legends and the scholarship: the books he is said to have written, the shamir worm that cut stone, Asmodeus and the ring, the genie in the bottle, the hoopoe who found Sheba, Menelik and the Ark in Ethiopia, the ants and the wind in the Quran, Handel's oratorio, the Spanish navigator who named an archipelago after him and why archaeologists still argue about whether the empire was as grand as described. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries for Solomon, the Judgement of Solomon and Solomon's Temple before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. Our Bible, Old Testament and ancient history quizzes are natural next stops.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who was King Solomon's father?
David
Solomon was the second child of that marriage; his mother was the widow of Uriah the Hittite.
Q 02Who was Solomon's mother?
Bathsheba
Her first child by the king, conceived in adultery, had died seven days after birth.
Q 03By what other name is Solomon known in the Bible?
Jedidiah
His two names are traditionally taken to mean peaceful and friend of God.
Q 04For what quality was Solomon most famous among biblical kings?
Wisdom
He is also called the wealthiest Israelite king named in the Bible.
Q 05What did Solomon ask God for in his famous dream, pleasing him by not asking for self-serving rewards?
Wisdom to rule his people
Rabbinic tradition holds that he was rewarded with riches and a glorious realm precisely because of his modest request.
Q 06In the Judgment of Solomon, what did the king order done with the baby claimed by two women?
Cut in two with a sword
The woman who begged him to give the child to her rival was declared the true mother.
Q 07Which foreign ruler visited Solomon bearing gold, spices and precious stones?
The Queen of Sheba
Sheba is usually identified with Saba, spanning the Red Sea coasts of Yemen, Eritrea and Ethiopia.
Q 08According to the biblical account, how many wives did Solomon have?
700
Plus 300 concubines; the only wife named is Naamah the Ammonite, mother of his successor.
Q 09Which rival of Solomon, David’s heir apparent, was outmanoeuvred by Bathsheba and the prophet Nathan?
Adonijah
The old king proclaimed Solomon king even though he was younger than his brothers.
Q 10Which coronation anthem, first sung in 1727, mentions the anointing of Solomon?
Zadok
Its 1727 setting has been sung at every British coronation since.
Q 11How long did construction of Solomon's Temple take?
Seven years
The foundation was laid in the month of Ziv in the fourth year of his reign.
Q 12How long did Solomon spend building his royal palace on Ophel?
Thirteen years
The complex included the House of the Forest of Lebanon and a residence for his Egyptian wife.
Q 13Which Phoenician king supplied Solomon with materials and workmen for the Temple?
Hiram of Tyre
They also ran joint trading fleets abroad; the Temple's architect was confusingly also named Hiram.
Q 21In Ethiopian tradition, who was the son of Solomon and his royal visitor from the south?
Menelik I
The Kebra Nagast says he took the real Ark of the Covenant to Axum, where a single priest still guards it.
Q 22According to Ethiopian legend, what sacred object did the son of Solomon and Sheba carry off to Axum?
The Ark of the Covenant
The Ethiopian government and church refuse all requests to view it.
Q 23In the Quran, which small creature warns its fellows to hide from Solomon's approaching army?
An ant
Islamic tradition also gives him control of the wind and the jinn, and the ability to speak with birds.
Q 14According to 1 Kings, how many talents of gold did Solomon collect in tribute in a single year?
666
That is about 18,125 kilograms, an enormous sum for a small nation.
Q 15How long did Solomon reign, according to 1 Kings 11:42?
Forty years
He died of natural causes at around 55, having reportedly taken the throne at about fifteen.
Q 16Which of Solomon's sons succeeded him and lost ten tribes to Jeroboam?
Rehoboam
His harsh policies split the monarchy into Israel in the north and Judah in the south.
Q 17According to the Bible, what caused God to divide the kingdom after Solomon's death?
His foreign wives turning his heart to other gods
He built temples to Ashtoreth and Milcom for them, according to 1 Kings 11.
Q 18Which three biblical books has Solomon traditionally been considered the author of?
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs
Rabbinic tradition adds a fourth, deuterocanonical book, and two psalms are headed 'to Solomon'.
Q 19By what Hebrew name is Ecclesiastes, one of the books attributed to Solomon, known?
Kohelet
Mishlei is Proverbs and Shir ha-Shirim is the Song of Songs.
Q 20Which conqueror destroyed Solomon's Temple, in 586 BCE?
Nebuchadnezzar II
Seventy years later Cyrus let the exiles return to build the Second Temple.
Q 24By what name is Solomon known in Islam, where he is counted a prophet?
Sulaiman ibn Dawud
During the Islamisation of Iran he merged with Jamshid, a great king of Persian myth.
Q 25In rabbinic legend, what was the shamir that Solomon used to cut the Temple's stones?
A worm whose touch split rock
His men stole it from a mountain rooster's nest by covering the nest with glass.
Q 26Which demon king, in legend, swallowed Solomon and spat him out 400 miles away before being expelled?
Asmodeus
In other versions he disguises himself and claims the Seal of Solomon was thrown into the sea.
Q 27What is the Seal of Solomon?
A legendary signet ring
It became an amulet in medieval and Renaissance magic, and frames the grimoire The Lesser Key of Solomon.
Q 28In One Thousand and One Nights, who frees a genie that Solomon had sealed in a bottle?
A fisherman
The bottle was closed with Solomon's own seal, so the genie could not escape on his own.
Q 29According to the Targum Sheni, which bird told Solomon about a rich land in the east ruled by a queen?
The hoopoe
Solomon was said to order animals to dance before him, a power granted by God.
Q 30What was remarkable about Solomon's throne, according to legend?
It had moving parts, an early machine
Rabbinic accounts say Pharaoh Necho was lamed by one of its lions because he did not know how it worked.