Herod was a ruler of the Jews. Whether or not he felt any responsibility to obey the Law of Moses, this sin greatly offended all of his Jewish subjects. No wonder John spoke up!

Of course it is not likely that such a man as Herod Antipas would repent at the preaching of John but it was still important for John to brand this illicit public relationship as adulterous lest respect for God’s laws of marriage be diminished in the eyes of the watching populace. It is the same reason why those who preach today must continue to apply God’s truth to the culture even when many in the secular culture disregard and discount it. Homosexuality and same-sex "marriage" fall into this category. It isn’t likely that those pressing these issues are going to change, but there is still a large segment of people in the middle who can and will be influenced by what they hear. They need to hear truth contrasted with error and it is the duty of any man of God that preaches to put it out there. While the battle for the sanctity of marriage certainly rages, it is not yet over.

Yet there will always be opposition. In John’s case, you don’t publicly rebuke a man like Herod Antipas without consequences. Herod sent his soldiers, plucked John right off the field, and arrested him. According to Josephus, a Jewish historian who was a contemporary of John, the prophet was incarcerated in the prison at the fort of Machaerus, a Jewish stronghold just northeast of the Dead Sea. It was a horrible place. William Barclay writes of the prison:

From earthly perspective, it hardly seems fair that such a good and faithful man as John should suffer in such a place during the final months of his life for doing nothing more than telling the truth. But such has long been the lot of those who preach God’s word. In this country we have had a relatively brief respite, but these days it seems a time may come again when those who preach will be abused. It is already happening elsewhere. I clipped the following news article from the Worldnetdaily.com website:

Right now our U.S. laws still protect us from such violations of free speech and free religion, but I do fear the day is coming when such a thing will happen here.

John’s faithfulness should inspire us today to be true to God’s word even when it is unpopular and there is opposition to it, though. The faith we hold today has been delivered to us by the suffering of many good men like John who did not flinch when it came time to speak up for God even when it cost them their freedom and their life. I agree with the Hebrew writer. The world is not worthy of such men.(4) But of course God is worthy of the efforts of such men and that is their primary motivation.

John’s scathing public rebuke of the unlawful marriage of Herod to his brother’s wife not only angered Antipas. It infuriated Herodias, a woman with few equals when it came to murderous vindictiveness. Mark says in verse 19:

It sounds like those words "kept him safe" probably mean that Herod kept John safe from his wife! She wanted him dead made no secret of the fact.

Have you noticed how; when people are wrong and have nothing that they can say in defense of their actions, they often resort to efforts to silence their critics? A person in the wrong will seldom engage in an open debate of the facts. The free exchange of ideas would condemn him. In extreme cases such efforts to silence opponents may even become deadly. That was the case with Herodias. But she had no authority of her own to kill John. Whatever she would do, it would have to be done through manipulating her weak-willed, henpecked husband.

As I studied through this passage it struck me how similar Herod and Herodias were to Ahab and Jezebel of the Old Testament - Herod the weak willed, paranoid, henpecked king and Herodias the conniving, manipulative, vengeful, murderous queen.

Herodias was all these things and more. In fact, we see in what she did that she was callused even toward her own young and impressionable daughter when it came to getting her way. Nursing the grudge she had against John for exposing her illicit relationship, she withdrew to bide her time, waiting for an opportunity to strike – which was soon to be. Verse 21:

In my study I found several interesting references to Jewish aversion to celebrating birthdays in the time of Christ. In fact, the religious Jews considered them shameful observances in that day – not because they didn’t like birthdays but because among the Gentiles they were considered occasions for drunkenness, gluttony and immorality. As a side note, this could be a reason why the earliest Christians did not celebrate the birthday of Jesus but rather celebrated the memorial of His death. This strong association between birthday observances and decadence provided for Herodias the perfect opportunity to satisfy her grudge – which pulled a third character into the intrigue.

Though I’ve called her Salome, the writers of the New Testament don’t give us the name of the daughter of Herodias by her former marriage. We get it from Josephus, the historian who was a contemporary of John. Most commentators speculate that Salome was quite young, perhaps in her late teens. Not much else is known of her, but she was suddenly summoned by her mother to dance for the gathering of drunken men.

There is little question that Salome’s "dance" was nothing tame. It was probably some kind of erotic, lewd display. Some suggest a belly dance. Others suggest things even more explicit. Mark says that "she pleased Herod and his dinner guests." I suspect their approval wasn’t based on their appreciation for the finer points of ballet. That word "pleased" is probably a euphemism for sexual arousal – the likely aim of Salome’s dance. Herod, aroused by the dance of his step daughter and grand-niece, drunk from the party, and arrogant in front of his guests, made a very foolish and boastful promise. In the earshot of all his guests, he swore that he would give this young girl anything she asked up to half his kingdom. It was the kind of foolish boast that often comes from the mouths of inebriated men. So the trap was sprung.

Does the apparent embellishment of her mother’s words with the phrase "on a platter" by Salome indicate that she was as twisted as her perverted mother? It wouldn’t surprise me. It seems that those added words came from Salome, not Herodias. Even today we see perversion among children at younger and younger ages, due to the growing decadence of our culture. Some commentators portray Salome as a reluctant innocent, pulled in against her will to do her mother’s bidding. I don’t see it that way. Having long been an observer of her twisted mother’s ways, and having had a ringside seat in the treacherous betrayal of her father, I rather suspect that she was a willing participant who knew very well her ability to seduce a room full of drunken men with her sensual choreography. Without hesitation, and perhaps with a look of brazen accomplishment on her face, she demanded, "I want you to give me right away the head of John the Baptist on a platter."

Herod was instantly sober! He suddenly realized he had been had! Herodias, who had wanted him to kill John since the day the prophet publicly embarrassed them, now would have her way. She knew very well that the trap she had laid for her reluctant and weak-willed husband would not allow him to escape – which brings us to the fourth character of this passage:

This is what Herod really was. We see here what was most important to him. The arrogant and weak-willed ruler was unwilling to recant his brash offer in the presence of his birthday guests, even if it meant committing murder and going against his underlying fear of harming John. Most certainly he could have refused to kill John. There was no law saying that he could not go back on a foolish boast – and there most certainly was a law against murder! But Herod had to save face with his guests – even if it meant the death of an innocent man. Verse 26:

He was "unwilling," not "unable." Men often hide their unwillingness to do what is right by saying "I can’t," when what they really mean is "I don’t want to." The king was sorry. He hadn’t wanted to harm John – just silence him. In fact, we’ve already seen that he was somewhat fond of the prophet. Verse 20 of our text speaks of Herod’s fondness for John: "And when he heard him, he was very perplexed; but he used to enjoy listening to him."

But the king’s sorrow was not the kind that brings a change of heart. It was not godly sorrow. His joy in listening to John was not godly joy. That ought to remind us that our response to the accurate preaching and teaching of God’s word must be more than mere sentiment and pleasant feelings. Our sorrow when our sin is exposed has to be more than the sorrow of getting caught. It has to be the kind of sorrow that will cause us to change our ways and begin to do what is right. Our joy at hearing the word of God must be the kind of joy that willingly puts God’s will ahead of our own even if we must "lose face" and endure the ridicule of those around us.

I like the way one commentator put it with regard to Herod: "A slight breath of temptation, regard for the world's opinion, and dislike of reproof, were enough to dry up his shallow religion."(5)

I have a relative in my family who is a bit like Herod in this area. He loves to be on good terms with the preacher because he thinks that will get him points with God. I’ve seen him do this with several ministers and since I’m a relative, I get it too. He loves to give me gifts and do nice things for me. He tries to flatter me and says he likes my sermons. But he never has liked them enough to change his life, so I have to tell him every chance I get that his familiarity with me buys him absolutely nothing in eternity because I’m not the judge. He must come to grips with God’s requirements of him.

At this point in our text, the death of John the Baptist came very quickly. Mark spares us the grisly details of the beheading and just reports the murderous deed. John received no trial. He had no defense counsel. He was never formerly accused. Herod just locked him up and when the situation suited him, he had him executed for the same – a deed which was illegal in the courts of both the Jews and the Romans. Verse 27:

So do evil people like Herod and Herodias just get away with their injustice while the innocent suffer? Why didn’t God move to stop this?

I cannot answer the last question about why God didn’t stop the murder of John the Baptist. We’ll have to wait for eternity for the complete answer. It seems that God often allows injustice to prevail temporarily, perhaps to illustrate why evil is really evil. But I can assure you that both Herod and Herodias will receive just recompense for their evil deeds at the judgment.

Yet there was a measure of judgment on these two even while they lived. Not long after the death of John, word came to Antipas that one called Jesus was preaching and teaching some of the same things that John had preached. Word was going around that this was John the Baptist raised from the dead.(6) This struck fear into the mind of the paranoid Herod. Luke reports the situation in Luke 9:7-9

Haunted by role in the death of John, Herod wanted very much to find out about this one called Jesus to see if it were really true that he was John resurrected.

But Jesus did not respond to Herod’s wishes to see Him. Neither did He respond to Herod’s later underhanded effort to get him to leave his jurisdiction.(7) In fact, He would have nothing to do with Herod until the night the Lord was taken before him during the unlawful trial. On that occasion, Pontius Pilate, wanting out of the dilemma of having to condemn Jesus, realized that Jesus was a Galilean belonging to the jurisdiction of Herod Antipas, and that the tetrarch happened to be in Jerusalem at that very time. So he sent him to Herod. At last, Herod would have his chance to talk to Jesus and resolve his fears. But it wasn’t to be. Luke 23:8-10 tells the story:

Herod had the very Son of God in his court, and he may have had a number of religious questions for Him, but for him it was too late. Jesus refused to answer him at all. Herod had rejected the message of John and now Jesus rejected Herod, which would effectively damn his soul forever. In great offense over Jesus’ silence, but unable to find any wrong in Him, in the true form of the tyrant that he was, Herod allowed his soldiers to mock Jesus and treat Him with contempt. Then in what seems to have been a cruel joke appreciated only by himself and Pilate, he had the Lord dressed in a gorgeous robe and sent Him back to the Governor. Luke tells us that though prior to this Herod and Pilate had been at odds with each other, that very day they became friends.(8) So this one who was the co-conspirator with Herodias in the death of John now became the co-conspirator with Pontius Pilate in the death of Jesus. His condemnation at judgment will be great.

But there is a little more. Not long after this, after the death of Jesus, in 38 A.D. Herod again came under the sway of his manipulative wife. Herod’s half-brother had recently been given the official title of "king" by the Emperor Caligula. Herodias thought it was a good time for her husband to be conferred with the same title.(9) So she instigated a trip to Rome to petition the Emperor for the title. But the plan backfired. In a series of events beyond the scope of our time here, through the influence of Antipas’ brother, instead of getting a crown, Antipas was deposed and banished to exile in Spain where he and Herodias went to meet their Maker and to receive a just recompense for their evil deeds. Though the wheels of God’s justice may grind slowly, but also grind completely.

Thus we end our consideration of the life of John the Baptist. Did it end in tragedy or in victory? It depends on your perspective. As a believer in John’s God, I say the latter, that John’s life ended in victory, for his unjust execution in this life was really his ticket into glory for the next.

Footnotes: Use your back button to return to your place.

1. Hebrews 11:38
2. The Daily Study Bible Series: The Gospel of Mark, Revised Edition, 1975, by Westminster Press, p. 149.
3. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39328, article dated July 8, 2004.
4. Hebrews 11:38
5. Fausset’s Bible Dictionary.
6. Matthew 16:14
7. See Luke 13:31-33 where some Pharisees, in a feigned move of "concern," tried to get Jesus to leave their area. These were probably put up to this by Herod.
8. Luke 23:12
9. Though the text of the gospels refers to Herod Antipas as "king" it seems that this may have merely been a gesture of courtesy and not his actual title (which was "tetrarch."

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

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All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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