No explicit mention of queens is made till we read of the "queen of Sheba." The wives of the kings of Israel are not so designated. In Psalms 45:9, the Hebrew for "queen" is not Malkah , One actually ruling like the Queen of Sheba, but Shegal , Which simply means the king's wife. In 1 Kings 11:19, Pharaoh's wife is called "the queen," but the Hebrew word so rendered (g'birah) is simply a title of honour, denoting a royal lady, used sometimes for "queen-mother" (1 Kings 15:13; 2Chron 15:16). In Cant 6:8,9, the king's wives are styled "queens" (Heb. melakhoth).

In the New Testament we read of the "queen of the south", i.e., Southern Arabia, Sheba (Matthew 12:42; Luke 11:31) and the "queen of the Ethiopians" (Acts 8:27), Candace.

QUEEN, n.

1. The consort of a king; a queen consort.

2. A woman who is the sovereign of a kingdom; a queen-regent; as Elizabeth, queen of England; Mary, queen of Scotland.

3. The sovereign of a swarm of bees, or the female of the hive.

A hive of bees cannot subsist without a queen.

Queen of the meadows, meadow sweet, a plant of the genus Spiraea.

QUEEN, v.i. To play the queen; to act the part or character of a queen.

This title is properly applied to the queen-mother, since in an Oriental household it is not the wife but the mother of the master who exercises the highest authority. Strange as such an arrangement at sight appears, it is one of the inevitable results of polygamy. An illustration of the queen-mother’s influence is given in (1 Kings 2:19) ff. The term is applied to Maachah, (1 Kings 15:13; 2 Chronicles 16:16) and to Jezetiel, (2 Kings 10:13) and to the mother of Jehoiachin or Jeconiah, (Jeremiah 13:18) compare 2Kin 24:12; Jere 29:2