A Throne Was Set for the King's Mother: The Queen Mother of David's House and the Queen of Heaven
Old Testament: 3 Kings 2:19-20
Then Bethsabee came to king Solomon, to speak to him for Adonias: and the king arose to meet her, and bowed to her, and sat down upon his throne: and a throne was set for the king's mother, and she sat on his right hand. And she said to him: I desire one small petition of thee, do not put me to confusion. And the king said to her: My mother, ask: for I must not turn away thy face.
Old Testament, also: Psalms 44:10
The daughters of kings have delighted thee in thy glory. The queen stood on thy right hand, in gilded clothing; surrounded with variety.
New Testament: Luke 1:32-33; Apocalypse 12:1, 5
He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the most High; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father; and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever. And of his kingdom there shall be no end. ... And a great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars: ... And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with an iron rod: and her son was taken up to God, and to his throne.
The connection
In the kingdom of David the queen was not the king's wife but the king's mother. When Bethsabee came in to Solomon, "the king arose to meet her, and bowed to her ... and a throne was set for the king's mother, and she sat on his right hand" (3 Kings 2:19). While David lived she had bowed to the ground before her husband (3 Kings 1:31); now her son bows to her. The books of Kings name the mother of nearly every king of Juda as he comes to the throne, and when Joachin surrendered to Babylon the king's mother is listed beside him (4 Kings 24:12, 15). Jeremias addresses the pair together: "Say to the king, and to the queen" (Jeremias 13:18). The angel promised Mary that her Son would have "the throne of David his father" and a kingdom with no end (Luke 1:32-33). If the Son of David reigns, the mother of the King has the place Bethsabee had. So the Magi find "the child with Mary his mother" (Matthew 2:11), and the Apocalypse shows a woman crowned with twelve stars whose son "was taken up to God, and to his throne" (Apocalypse 12:1, 5). The queen of Psalm 44 who stands "on thy right hand, in gilded clothing" the Fathers usually read as the Church; the Church in turn sees her fullness in Mary, its first member. St John Damascene gives the title plainly: she who bore God incarnate is "in all strictness and truth in reality God's Mother and Lady and Queen over all created things" (Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith IV.14). The Catechism says she was "exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death" (CCC 966).
Moral sense
Solomon said to his mother, "ask: for I must not turn away thy face", and then refused her, because what she asked would have put a rival on his throne. That refusal is the lesson. The mother of a king has great power with him only while she asks what serves his kingdom. Bethsabee was a good mother who asked badly. Mary at Cana asked for the wine and then turned to the servants and said, "Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye" (John 2:5). Her petitions are always for her Son's glory, and that is why He never turns her face away. So we go to her with confidence, and let her correct what we ask before she carries it in. And the same rule governs our own prayer: we are heard most surely when we ask for nothing that would set anything beside Him on the throne of our hearts.
Anagogical sense
The throne of Solomon passed away, and Jeremias foretold that the crown of glory would come down from the heads of the king and the queen mother when Jerusalem fell. The Son of David has a throne that does not pass: "of his kingdom there shall be no end". At His right hand a throne is set for His mother, not because she rules beside Him in her own right, but because she has been made most like Him. What is given to her first is promised to all who overcome: "To him that shall overcome, I will give to sit with me in my throne" (Apocalypse 3:21). The crown of twelve stars is the pledge of the crowns the saints will cast before the throne, and the Queen of heaven is the first of the redeemed to wear hers.
The Fathers
St John Damascene, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith IV.14: "she who played the part of the Creator's servant and mother is in all strictness and truth in reality God's Mother and Lady and Queen over all created things."
Warrant
Traditional because no New Testament text and no Father in the site's texts names Bethsabee as a figure of Mary; the reading of the queen mother's throne at the king's right hand as the pattern of Mary's queenship is the Church's later tradition. The queenship itself is patristic, as St John Damascene shows, and is taught by the Catechism (CCC 966). The office of the king's mother is well attested: Kings names the mother of nearly every king of Juda, and the Hebrew word for her is gebirah, great lady, which the Douay gives as queen in Jeremias 13:18 (the Septuagint there reads tois dynasteuousin, those in power, instead). In 3 Kings 2:19 the site's Septuagint (Swete) has the king kiss her, katephilesen, where the Hebrew and Latin have him bow. The Fathers in the site's texts who comment on Psalm 44:10 (Clement of Alexandria, Augustine) take the queen at the right hand as the Church, not Mary, and the entry says so.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 966.
The verses
3 Kings 2:19 · 3 Kings 2:20 · Psalms 44:10 · Luke 1:32 · Luke 1:33 · Apocalypse 12:1 · Apocalypse 12:5
