The Sunday Mail
Ibo Foroma Ratsafarian Perspectives
BORN on July 23, 1892 under the Zodiac star Leo the Lion, Emperor Haile Selassie I was destined to be crowned Negusa Negust (King of Kings), Moa Anbessa Ze Imnegede Yehuda (Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah) Seyoume Igziabeher (Elect of God) way before his birth.
| According to the 12 tribes of Israel in Genesis, the same period is the month of Judah, and Solomon was born under the same sign. The Rastafari Community is ecstatic with joy for unto us a son was born from David and Solomon’s line. |
“For there has been a child born to us; and the princely rule will come to be upon his shoulder. And his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
To the abundance of the princely rule and to peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom in order to establish it firmly and to sustain it by means of justice and by means of righteousness, from now on and to time indefinite. The very zeal of Jehovah of armies will do this.” (Isaiah 9:6-7)
Isaiah 9 is possibly the most quoted Biblical prophecy pointing towards the direction of a Deliverer to descend from King David’s root.
The prophecy in Isaiah 11 points to the birth of Lidj Tafari, the final monarchy to rule over Ethiopia whose emblem carried the proud Lion of Judah that bravely assisted a great many captive territories to regain independence and freedom. The grace of God/Jah accomplished this.
King Selassie I’s Solomonic dynasty goes back nearly 3 000 years and it fused the Semitic Solomonic and the Hamitic Queen of Sheba lineages.
The Queen of Sheba, to whom the Song of Solomon is dedicated, was black and Her Imperial Majesty’s Empire was actually far much bigger and greater than Solomon’s Jerusalem. Kandake Makeda was black. (Songs of Solomon 1:5)
Jesse, David’s father, is famous for being the blackest Jew hence Solomon, too, was black and had dreadlocks. (Song of Solomon 5:2)
King Solomon and Kandake Makeda the Queen of Sheba consummated, and Menelik I was born, hence we have the Solomonic dynasty of Ethiopia.
In the “Wonderful Ethiopians of The Ancient Cushite Empire”, Drusilla Dunjee Houston says, “William Leo Hansberry, an eminent African-American historian and Ethiopianist scholar, referred to ancient Ethiopia as ‘the original Eden of humankind’. Leo’s proposal has been supported by a whole set of fossil evidence gathered from northeast Africa, including the present-day Ethiopia.”
In his “Pillars in Ethiopian History,” Leo Hansberry testifies, “The story of the Queen of Sheba is one of the most ubiquitous and compelling legends in history.
It has been perpetuated in various parts of the world in literature, music, and paintings: Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, poems by Lascel-les Abercrombie, Rudyard Kipling, and WB Yeats; musical pieces by Karl Goldmark, CF Gounod, and GF Handel; European and Persian paintings; and the Ethiopian Tableau which portrays the story in forty-four vivid pictures.”
“No name or royal title relating to a woman of historical antiquity is more familiar to the learned and the laity of the Western world than is the Queen of Sheba.
“Traditions concerning her visit to King Solomon are infinitely better known than is the story of Jezebel’s hapless adventure at Ahab’s court and the stirring story of Queen Hatshepsut’s famous expedition to Punt. Not even the thrilling romances woven around the love affairs of Aspasia and Pericles; Theodora and Justinian; or even Cleopatra and Marc Antony have attained wider popular fame…
“In Ethiopia it has long been all but universally believed that she was an Ethiopian Queen named Makeda; and there have been a number of Western authors who have shared Ethiopian opinions in this respect. Among the ancients were Flavius Josephus, the famous Jewish historian, and such Fathers of the church as Origen, Saint Anselm, and the great Saint Augustine.
“In the Middle Ages and early modern times those of similar opinions included the anonymous twelfth-century author of the De Imagena Munda, Abu Salih (the Armenian historian), and Fathers Francisco Alvarez, Alfonso Mendez, and Pedro Paez, as well as the noted seventeenth-century Portuguese historians, Father Toledo and Balthazar Telles.
“In more recent times the great explorer James Bruce, the noted missionary JL Krapf, the learned French historian Louis J Morie, and – with reservations – Sir Wallis Budge, must be added to the list.”
He goes on to say, “The Queen of Sheba legend makes the Ethiopian monarchy both a physical and a religious descendant of the kingship of Israel; it also rooted the monarchy in the concept of the divine kingship; and both of these ideas are imbedded in the Ethiopian constitution of 1955 …
“The strength of the legend is further revealed in the continuity of the Solomonic line, which is generally held to be the oldest surviving monarchy in the world, presently held since 1917 (as Regent) and 1928 (as Emperor) by Haile Selassie I, known also as the Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah and the Elect of God.”
