Lk 11:29-32
29While still more people gathered in the crowd, [Jesus] said to them, “This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah. 30Just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation. 31At the judgment the queen of the south will rise with the men of this generation and she will condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and there is something greater than Solomon here. 32At the judgment the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it, because at the preaching of Jonah they repented, and there is something greater than Jonah here.”
QUEEN OF THE SOUTH: People in the Mediterranean world labeled each other by stereotypes, often by stereotyped identity of the group. Jesus would be looked upon by the elites in Jerusalem as a disreputable “Galilean,” by Nathanael from Cana as coming from Nazareth “from which nothing good comes,” and even by the people of Nazareth as a simple “carpenter.” Worse, his opponents would see Jesus in league with demons.
In refuting the deviance label, Jesus claims to be greater than Jonah and even King Solomon. In his time, Solomon’s fame attracted people from afar. The report of Solomon’s wealth and wisdom had reached as far as Sheba, in what is now Yemen in Africa. Sheba was a trading center of the Arabs, and its traders traded gold, spices, and precious stones with Solomon, especially with the expansion of the Israelite trade through Solomon’s port at Ezion-geber and his Red Sea fleet. The mission of the queen of Sheba was probably a trade mission described in the romantic language of the popular tradition. When the queen of Sheba witnessed Solomon’s great wisdom and his wealth, she was breathless. She told the king: “The report I heard in my country about your deeds and your wisdom is true” (1 Kgs 10:6).
The people who have earlier accused Jesus of casting out devils by the power of the prince of demons (Lk 11:15) now look for a “sign”—they want him to do something sensational to prove that he is really the anointed one of God. Jesus tells them that the Son of Man is the sign for their generation just as Jonah was for the people of Nineveh. He contrasts their attitude with that of the queen of Sheba who traveled a great distance to hear King Solomon’s wisdom. Jesus is greater than Solomon, and yet the Jews ignore—and refuse to accept—him. Thus, he calls them an evil generation.