I was just looking at the story of the Queen of Sheba and found that in Bava Basra 15b it says that the Malka was not a queen but the government or something. This is despite all other mekoros and the pashut hapshat, and the Zohar, that says SHE was a Shin-Daled.
How does one understand this?!
David Goldman
The Maharsha in Bava Basra explains that the Queen of Sheba was actually a queen. He writes that what Rabbi Yochanan there means by saying that someone who says she was a woman is making a mistake, is that if you would say that she was only the wife of the king, you have got it wrong (i.e. the Hebrew word for "woman" and "wife" is identical). The mistake that R. Yochanan is warning us not to make, is to say that "Queen of Sheba" means that she was the wife of the King of Sheba. When the Gemara says that "Queen of Sheba" means the "Kingdom of Sheba", this does not mean that she was not a person but rather that she was the ruler (i.e. kingdom) herself and not merely the wife of the ruler.
[Yalkut Me'am Loez - 2 Kings 10:2 DH v'Amru p.173 - writes that possibly the Queen of Sheba reigned after her father, so this would be something similar to Atalya who reigned after her son died (see 2 Melachim 11). Maharsha writes that in his times also there were queens who reigned in their own right, and of course the present Queen of England is the monarch because her father had no sons.]
Maharsha adds that according to his explanation that she really was a woman, the simple meaning of the verse is better understood, because it seems from the account in Melachim that she was a female, and the account concludes (2 Melachim 10:13) "And she turned and went to her land; she and her servants".
KOL TUV
D. Bloom