'Throne,' not 'seat' — kisse' and thronos in 1 Kings 2:19, and the Bathsheba reversal (Chapter 4 · 4.1 The Queen Mother in Ancient Israel)	Some English versions say Solomon had a 'seat' brought for his mother. The Hebrew is kisse', the Greek thronos — 'the exact same word used in the previous verse to describe Solomon's throne.' 'It is hard to overestimate the significance of this passage.' Pitre also sets it beside 1 Kings 1: while David lived, Bathsheba bowed and did obeisance to the king and called him 'my lord'; once her son reigns 'the roles are reversed' — the king rises, bows to her, and enthrones her at his right hand. The obvious implication is that the king's mother, not his wife, is queen.	catena::topic-queen-mother-gebirah
A kingdom needs a queen — the four marks of the gebirah (Chapter 4 · 4.0 Opening)	The gospel is the arrival of a kingdom — 'the empire of God' — and God promised David a throne 'for ever.' Jesus is not only a new Adam and a new Moses but a new David, so the question follows: 'If Jesus is the new Davidic king, then who is the new queen?' Pitre answers from the Old Testament's portrait of the queen mother (gebirah, 'great lady') under four heads: the queen is the king's mother, not his wife; she reigns with the king; she is a powerful intercessor; and she appears in the prophecies of the future king. He then imagines first-century Jewish women asking not only 'Who will be the mother of the Messiah?' but 'Who will be the new queen mother?'	catena::topic-queen-mother-gebirah
In David's kingdom, who was the queen — and why? (Chapter 4 · 4.1 The Queen Mother in Ancient Israel)	Not the king's wife (kings had many) but the king's mother — the gebirah, 'great lady.' Solomon rose, bowed, and set Bathsheba on a throne (Hebrew kisse', the very word used of Solomon's own throne in the previous verse — 'seat' in some translations undersells it, p 69) at his right hand, and she carried petitions to him. Almost every king of Judah is introduced with the name of his mother (p 75).	catena::topic-queen-mother-gebirah
Mary's name in Matthew's genealogy is the queen-mother formula; Joseph 'son of David' makes her a royal wife (Chapter 4 · 4.2 Mary the New Queen)	Why is a woman named at the end of a royal genealogy, when 'Hebrew women were not usually included'? Because in the Jewish Scriptures one kind of woman is always named when a king comes to the throne: his mother. 'Almost every time a new king begins to reign, the name of his royal mother is given' (1 Kings 14:21; 15:1–2; 2 Kings 8:25–26, and on through the kings of Judah). Matthew's 'Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus' follows the formula. And Matthew 1:18–23 identifies Joseph as 'son of David' and Mary as mother of Immanuel: 'As the legal wife of Joseph the son of David and the mother of Immanuel, from an ancient Jewish perspective, Mary is the royal queen mother.'	catena::topic-queen-mother-gebirah
The Magnificat is throne language (Chapter 4 · 4.2 Mary the New Queen)	Three observations. When Mary says God 'exalted those of low degree,' she is 'referring first and foremost to herself,' having just spoken of 'the low estate of his handmaiden' — 'Mary is the personal embodiment of the poor and the lowly in Israel.' 'He has put down the mighty from their thrones' 'is royal language. It is kings and queens who sit on thrones, and when they are put down from their thrones, others must take their place.' And 'all generations will call me blessed' echoes Psalm 45:17, where the king's name is celebrated in all generations. So the Magnificat implies 'that both she and her son have been exalted to sit upon the thrones of the Davidic king and his mother.'	catena::topic-queen-mother-gebirah
The logic that makes Mary the Queen Mother. (Chapter 4 · 4.2 Mary the New Queen)	Jesus is the new David, given 'the throne of his father David.' If he is the Davidic King, his mother holds the Davidic office of queen mother. Elizabeth already grants the royal title, and Revelation crowns the Woman with twelve stars.	catena::topic-queen-mother-gebirah
The right hand means shared authority — Psalm 110:1, the crown of Jeremiah 13:18, an office not a title (Chapter 4 · 4.1 The Queen Mother in Ancient Israel)	The queen mother 'held an official position in the kingdom, second in rank only to the king himself.' Two symbols show it. She wore a crown: Jeremiah tells 'the king and the queen mother' together to humble themselves, for their crowns are coming down. And she sat or stood at the king's right hand, as Psalm 45 pictures the queen 'in gold of Ophir' — Old Testament scholars agree this queen is the king's mother. The right hand means 'a share in his authority,' just as the king who sits at God's right hand (Psalm 110:1) shares in God's authority. After the monarch himself, she has 'the place of highest honor.'	catena::topic-queen-mother-gebirah
Whoever Immanuel is, his mother is the queen mother — and Micah 5 as the oldest reading of Isaiah 7 (Chapter 4 · 4.1 The Queen Mother in Ancient Israel)	Pitre steps around the old debate over Isaiah 7:14 — the meaning of the 'sign,' the sense of 'almah, whether the child is Hezekiah or a future king — with one observation: 'However one interprets the prophecy, the maiden is the mother of the future king. As such, the mother of Immanuel would by definition also be the queen mother.' Then Micah: several scholars hold that Micah's prophecy of the woman who 'gives birth' to the Bethlehem ruler is based on Isaiah 7, which makes it 'the most ancient Hebrew interpretation of the birth of Immanuel that we possess' — and it reads Isaiah 7 of the Messiah, whose origin is 'from days of eternity' and whose human mother is 'she who gives birth.'	catena::topic-queen-mother-gebirah