Matthew 14:1-11 Fear God, Not Man

Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 26 Aug 2012

Translation

14:1 During that particular time, Herod the Tetrarch heard the hearsay about Jesus

14:2 and said to his attendants, “This is John the Baptizer himself! He’s been raised from the dead, and that’s how these miracles are at work through him.”

14:3 For, after having seized John, Herod had bound him and put him in prison due to Herodias, the wife of his brother Phillip,

14:5 and when he wanted to kill him, he was afraid of the crowd, because they were holding him to be like a prophet.

14:6 Now during a birthday happening for Herod, the daughter of Herodias danced in the middle and pleased Herod,

14:7 for which he assented with an oath to give to her what ever she might request.

14:8 Then, “Give me,” she said, she having been imposed upon by her mother, “here, upon a platter, the head of John the Baptizer.”

14:9 And the king was not happy, but on account of the oaths and the fellow-diners he ordered [it] to be given.

14:11 and his head was brought upon a platter and was given to the girl, and she brought [it] to her mother.

Introduction

I want to use this passage and the surrounding history to do character studies on these four people and draw some applications from their lives. See the “Exposition” section at the end for these character studies.

Commentary

14:1 During that particular time, Herod the Tetrarch heard the hearsay about Jesus

εν εκεινω τω καιρω ηκουσεν ‘Ηρωδης ‘ο τετραρχης[1] την ακοην Ιησου

· Herod was actually a last name, not a first name, but the culture we’re reading about put the last name first[2].

· This Herod was the Son of Herod the Great by Malthace the Samaritan, one of his many wives.

· Herod the Great was the one who killed all the babies in Bethlehem. He died shortly thereafter of sickness and divided his kingdom among three of his many sons:

o Half the kingdom – including Judea, Samaria, and Idumea - went to Archelaus the Ethnarch, who was the ruthless son reigning when Joseph and Mary moved back from Egypt and was the reason why they did not settle back in Bethlehem, but rather settled in Nazareth, which was under the rulership of Herod Antipas. Archelaeus was such an awful ruler that Caesar banished him to Gaul after 10 years and gave his rulership over to Agrippa, whom the Apostle Paul met later on.

o Herod Antipas was Archelaus’ younger brother of the same mom, and he received Galilee and Perea (Trans-Jordan) as his quarter-share (or tetrarchy) from his father’s kingdom. Antipas is the Herod who imprisoned John the Baptizer and whom Jesus called a Fox.

o The last quarter of Herod the Great’s kingdom was given to his son Philip II, whom he had by another wife named Cleopatra, and that tetrarchy included Northern Israel and part of Syria.

o There was another son of Herod the Great named Philip I who was the son of Mariamne the Boethusian and who married Herodias (his neice). Salome was their daughter, and she married her uncle Philip II.

o Got all that straight? This is Herod Antipas, one of the three reigning sons of Herod the Great who was ruler over Galilee where Jesus lived and Perea where John lived.

· Remember when Jesus healed the man with the withered hand at the synagogue in Galilee after the Passover in Jerusalem? Mark 3:6 tells us that, “the Pharisees went out and immediately began conspiring with the Herodians against Him, as to how they might destroy Him.” So it is possible that these buddies of Herod went back to Herod and told him about Jesus, and that’s how Herod heard the fame (or the news report about) Jesus.

· The parallel passage in Luke 9:9 tells us that Herod was hoping to meet Jesus. His wish came true a year or so later[3] when Jesus was on trial before Pilate in Jerusalem, and Pilate realized that Jesus was a citizen of Galilee, so he sent Jesus to Herod, the tetrarch over Galilee, but Jesus wouldn’t talk to him.

14:2 and said to his attendants, “This is John the Baptizer himself! He’s been raised from the dead, and that’s how these miracles are at work through him.”

και ειπεν τοις παισιν αυτου ‘Ουτος εστιν Ιωαννης ‘ο βαπτιστης αυτος ηγερθη απο των νεκρων και δια τουτο ‘αι δυναμεις ενεργουσιν εν αυτω.

· The Greek word in v.2 describing who it was that heard Herod’s hypothesis about John is pais, which literally means “child,” and is used of any dependent in a man’s household, including, of course, the servants working in the palace. The Bible doesn’t say who all in Herod’s household heard this, but I suspect that his step-daughter Salome was among those who heard.

· Herod knew it was wrong to kill John, an innocent and righteous man. In ordering John’s execution, Herod violated his conscience, and that plagued him. The reports of Jesus’ goodness immediately stirred up in Herod’s memory the person of John, and his guilty conscience imagined that John was coming back from the grave to haunt and shame him.

· Ghost stories were nothing new in Herod’s family. His father, Herod the Great, was said by the historian Josephus (Wars of the Jews, Vol. 1, Ch. 30, P.7) to be haunted by the ghosts of two of his older sons who were killed in a plot between his brother Pheroras’s family and his wife Mariamne the Boethian. It may have been that Mariamne was wanting to knock out other heirs to Herod’s throne so that her son Phillip I would get a larger inheritance. Anyway, it was said that the ghosts of the assassinated heirs tormented Mariamne and the other perpetrators until they confessed their involvement in the assassinations. As a result, Herod the Great disinherited his son Phillip I because of his mom’s involvement in the assassination.

· This means that Phillip’s wife, Herodias was no longer married to an heir to the throne, which was probably a disappointment to her. This also meant that Salome, the daughter of Phillip and Herodias was shamed for the conduct of her grandmother, and got dragged along with her mom when Herodias left Phillip.

· However, if they had only listened to John’s message rather than being absorbed in their own affairs, they would have heard John say, “There is one coming after me whose shoes I am unworthy to touch. He will baptize with the Holy Spirit.” The explanation for Jesus’ miracles did not require such an elaborate explanation as Herod came up with; it would have been obvious to anyone who was looking for God to send His Messiah to come after John. From this it seems pretty clear that Herod was not looking for the consolation of Israel (Luke 2:25).

14:3 For, after having seized John, Herod had bound him and put him in prison due to Herodias, the wife of his brother Phillip,

‘ο γαρ ‘Ηρωδης [4] κρατησας τον Ιωαννην εδησεν [αυτον^א^,B] και [απ[5]]εθετο εν φυλακη δια ‘Ηρωδιαδα την γυναικα Φιλιππου[6] του αδελφου αυτου

· “This prison was the fortress of Machaerus on the east side of the Dead Sea, almost on a line with Bethlehem, above the gorge which divided the Mountains of Abarim from the range of Pisgah. Perched on an isolated cliff at the end of a narrow ridge, encompassed with deep ravines, was the citadel. At the other end of this ridge Herod built a great wall, with towers two hundred feet high at the corners; and within this enclosure, a magnificent palace, with colonnades, baths, cisterns, arsenals – every provision, in short, for luxury and for defence against siege. The windows commanded a wide and grand prospect, including the Dead Sea, the course of the Jordan, and Jerusalem. In the detached citadel, probably in one of the underground dungeons, remains of which may still be seen, was the prison of John… [T]his keep is exactly one hundred yards in diameter. There are scarcely any remains of it left. A well of great depth, and a deep, cemented cistern, with the vaulting of the roof still complete, and – of most terrible interest to us – two dungeons, one of them deep down, its sides scarcely broken in, ' with small holes still visible in the masonry where staples of wood and iron had once been fixed!' As we look down into its hot darkness, we shudder in realizing that this terrible keep had, for [a year or two] been the prison of that son of the free wilderness, the bold herald of the coming kingdom…” (Edersheim, “Life and Times of Jesus” as quoted by Vincent)

ελεγεν γαρ αυτω ‘ο Ιωαννης ουκ εξεστιν σοι εχειν αυτην

· John understood his role in life to be the voice in the wilderness calling out to God’s people to turn away from sin and get right with God, which is what the ceremony of his baptisms symbolized, in order to prepare a people to follow Jesus when He revealed Himself as the Messiah.

· Therefore He studied the O.T. law and taught it to people who wanted to get right with God.

o Luke 3 records John giving advice to soldiers and tax collectors about how to practice their professions lawfully: He told the tax collectors, “Collect no more than what you have been ordered to,” and he told the soldiers, “Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyone falsely, and be content with your wages.” (Luke 3:13-14, NASB)

o The wording of Matthew 14:4 sounds like Herod himself may have even come to John asking advice about whether or not he should marry Herodias, and John had said something to the effect of, “O king, don’t do it; it is not lawful. It would be a violation of the 10^th and 7^th Commandments – ‘You shall not covet/lust after your neighbor’s wife,’ and ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ Taking any man’s wife is adultery, but taking your brother’s wife is even worse, for Leviticus 18:16 says, ‘You must not uncover the nakedness of your brother’s wife…’ Phillip is your brother from the same father (even if he is of a different mother), and Herodias is your brother’s wife, so God’s law forbids you to take advantage of her. Furthermore, in Leviticus 20:21, God’s law states, ‘If there is a man who takes his brother's wife, it is abhorrent; he has uncovered his brother's nakedness. They will be childless.’ Therefore, O king, repent and return Herodias to your brother, and you return to your own wife, the daughter of Aretas the Arab. This is what the Lord your God requires of you, to put away your idolatrous lust and prepare yourself to meet the Messiah!”

o The Greek imperfect tense of the verb translated “had been saying” in v.4 indicates that John gave this advice to Herod on more than one occasion. Perhaps Herod had come back to John and said, “But I really love Herodias, and she is a consenting adult, and that Arab I married before is a witch, surely God wouldn’t deny me the right to marry whomever I love?” But John stood fast by God’s word which does not change, “It is not lawful, Herod.”

· “John would rather turn a friend [who came to him for advice] into an enemy, than, by his flattery and silence, nourish the evil which he is forced severely to repulse. Therefore, by his example, John lays down a sure rule for all godly teachers, that they should not convive at the vices of princes, even in exchange for the most desirable profit to the common good.” ~J. Calvin

· Rotting there in prison, how could John have known what a powerful effect his words had upon the queen? You never know how a word from God’s law might stick in the conscience of an acquaintance, like John’s words did in Herodias’ mind, so let us speak God’s word when we can!

· But covetousness or lust is deadly because it captures your mind and blinds you to the consequences of sin. Just from a worldly standpoint, it was stupid for Herod to bring home Herodias and send the Arab princess away. What was he thinking? The king of Arabia didn’t take too kindly to his daughter being disgraced like that. He rallied his armies and started a costly war against Herod. Herod paid dearly for that foolish choice controlled by lust.

14:5 and when he wanted to kill him, he was afraid of the crowd, because they were holding him to be like a prophet.

και θελων αυτον αποκτειναι εφοβηθη τον οχλον ‘οτι ‘ως προφητην αυτον ειχον

· In contrast to John, Herod was oriented around human opinion. Mark 6:19 tells us that Herod would occasionally listen to John preach and appreciated it, so even though he knew that his wife wanted to kill John, he kept John safe. But he was wishy-washy. Matt. 14:5 tells us that sometimes Herod wanted to kill John after all, perhaps because his wife was so intent upon it, but even when Herod wanted to kill John, he was influenced by the opinion of the crowds of people in his district who would have objected to him killing John. The only thing that held him back from murder was the disapproval he would face from the crowd if he did it. Herod had no internal morality based upon the unchanging word of God. He was subject to the changing whims of people’s opinions. His fear of man set him up to be manipulated.

· “Herod feared that the putting of John to death might raise a mutiny among the people, which it did not; but he never feared it might raise a mutiny in his own conscience, which it did! Men fear being hanged for that which they do not fear being damned for.” ~Matthew Henry

· Herodias, however was not trying to follow the crowd. She was oriented around her own self and what she wanted.

o She wanted Herod, and she knew that she would have to be manipulative in order to keep a fox like him. If he could get tired of his first wife and dismiss her, he could do the same to Herodias.

o In her mind, John was a threat to her because John was telling Herod to dump her and go back to his first wife. John was insisting that Herodias go back to her original husband Phillip, whom she viewed as a loser.

o She didn’t want to do that, so Mark 6 tells us that she held a grudge against John. In her mind, the way to deal with this threat was to get rid of the man who was giving this council that was opposed to what she wanted.

o A number of Bible commentators I read concluded that the whole scene with Salome’s dance and Herod’s promise was all contrived by Herodias to knock John off.[7]

14:6 Now during a birthday happening for Herod, the daughter of Herodias danced in the middle and pleased Herod

Γενεσιοις/γενεσιων δε γενομενοις/αγομενων [8]του ‘Ηρωδου ωρχησατο ‘η θυγατηρ της ‘Ηρωδιαδος εν τω μεσω και ηρεσεν τω ηρωδη

· Nobody else but Pharoah (Gen. 40:20) is mentioned in the Bible as celebrating birthdays, but here in Mt. 14:6, Herod is doing it. This doesn’t make birthdays necessarily right or wrong; it’s all in the reason why we do what we do – whether it is for the glory of God or not (I Cor. 10:31).

· The parallel passage Mark 6:21 tells us that it included a dinner and tells us who was invited: the big-cheeses (lords), the army majors (tribunes), and the leading men of Galilee.

· A Roman author named Persius, wrote about a festival known as “Herod’s Day,” which may have been one of these birthday occasions. He description of the decorations and the food includes lamps, flowers, incense, plates of cooked fish, and wine: “But when Comes Herod's day, and on the steaming panes The ranged lamps, festooned with violets, pour The unctuous cloud, while the broad tunny-tail Sprawled o’er the red dish swims, and snowy [skins] Swell with the wine.” (Persius, Satires. v., 180-188, as translated by Marvin Vincent)

o is the same Greek word used of King David dancing worshipfully in the procession with the ark of the covenant (2 Sam. 6:16-21),

o and it’s used as an antonym for mourning in Ecclesiastes 3:4 and Matthew 11:17 (mourning vs. dancing).

o Isaiah also uses this word in his prophecy to describe goats jumping around in the ruins of Babylon (13:21).

o I do not think the evidence is conclusive as to what Salome’s dance was like:

§ Many Bible commentators I respect framed it as erotic, for instance, Calvin wrote, “it was a shameful mark of lasciviousness and harlotry in a marriageable girl, but Herodias had shaped her daughter to her own morals.”

§ I was intrigued, however, with one modern scholar who insisted that, as a Roman function in a Jewish country, this birthday party would have been very proper and highbrow, with everyone well-dressed, and that Salome would have been in a lineup of actors wearing masks and pantomiming a Greek play, accompanied by stringed instruments. [9]

o This same source explained that the noblemen would have been reclining to eat on the outside of a horse-shoe-shaped set of low tables, so the actors or dancers could do their performance in the inner part of the horse-shoe, which explains the Greek wording which says literally that she danced “in the middle” of them (en tw mesw).

· Likewise, the effect on Herod could be interpreted different ways, since the word translated “pleased” is used in the Bible to indicate physical arousal as well as to indicate a lifting of the spirits. But really, I’m not inclined to think the best of Herod, because the facts of the Bible and of history tell us he was unfaithful to his wife, unfaithful to the law, and unfaithful to his king. ‘Nuff said.

14:7 for which he assented [promised] with an oath to give to her what ever she might request.

‘οθεν μεθ’ ‘ορκου ‘ωμολογησεν αυτη δουναι ‘ο εαν αιτησηται

· Now, considering the fact that Salome, as the only child, was already an heir (I found no record of Herod and Herodias ever having children), it may not have been entirely inappropriate to make an offer like Herod did, but knowing the character of the person he offered the favor to, he should have known better, and it stands as a reminder to us to guard our words and not make promises thoughtlessly.

· “Those in whom passion and luxury have destroyed self-command will in a capricious moment say and do what in their cool moments they bitterly regret.” ~JFB

14:8 Then, “Give me,” she said, she having been imposed upon by her mother, “here, upon a platter, the head of John the Baptizer.”

‘η δε προβιβασθεισα ‘υπο της μητρος αυτης Δος μοι φησιν ‘ωδε επι πινακι την κεφαλην Ιωαννου του βαπτιστου

· probibastheisa, translated “instructed” or “prompted” appears only two other places in the Bible:

o So here we have a domineering mother imposing upon her daughter to do something evil. You parents, while Herodias’ crime is repulsive, I think it is more tempting than we would like to admit to use our children as accomplices in sin. This shows up in co-dependent relationships where each helps the other to continue in some sin, but it can happen in little ways too – watch out!

· Matthew’s account portrays Salome as playing the suspense to the hilt. I tried to reproduce the way she phrased the sentence in Greek by interrupting the quote (a rare occurrence in Greek, but something Matthew does here) and by saving the bombshell for the very end: “Give me,” she said, having been imposed upon by her mother, “here, upon a platter, the head of John the Baptizer.”

· The parallel passage in Mark has Herodias only wanting the head of John, so the addition of the platter may have been Salome trying to also get something out of the deal.

o Pikani – dish^Wycliffe, charger^{KJV-archaic
word for dish}, trencher^JFB, or platter^Tyndale

o The poor girl was offered anything she wanted – up to half of Herod’s rule, and all she got out of it was a serving dish! What a ripoff!

· She was taken advantage of because she allowed other people to control her. She apparently did not have God’s wisdom to guide her, although it is possible that this debacle was a turning point in her life.

o Somebody with inside connections informed Mark and Matthew of the details of this VIP birthday party. Is it possible that it was Salome herself, and that she was so ashamed that she prevailed upon the gospel writers not to mention her name? It is only from Josephus the Jewish historian that we get her name, not the Bible.

o Anyway, despite her crime against God’s prophet, God was merciful to Salome later on by giving her a good husband in Phillip II, who was a stable and just ruler, and apparently a faithful husband, unlike Herod.

o According to the 8^th Century Byzantine historian Nicephorus, Salome died by a stroke of providential poetic justice. She was crossing a frozen river, fell through the ice, and was decapitated by the sharp edges of the ice. Classic Bible commentators John Gill and Matthew Henry seemed to think the account likely true.

14:9 And the king was not happy (sorry/grieved/distressed), but on account of the oaths and the fellow-diners [the ones sitting together with him] he ordered [it] to be given.

και ελυπηθη[10] ‘ο βασιλευς δια δε τους ‘ορκους και τους συνανακειμενους εκελευσεν δοθηναι

· Here is a further indication of Herod’s moral confusion. Instead of looking to the law of God to set his course, he was looking to the approval of the people around him to set his course.

o His wife and daughter wanted John dead, and his birthday guests had heard him make a promise and would ridicule him for making a foolish promise or for not keeping his word if he went back on his promise.

o This seems to imply that Herod was the sort of man who would not keep his promises – even multiplied oaths (for the word is plural in v.9) unless he would somehow lose face for not keeping them.

o He could have made everything right by confessing that he had sinned against God by an unlawful marriage and by carelessly giving to his foolish daughter the control of up to half of the leadership responsibility entrusted by God to him. He could have said that it is better in God’s sight to offer an alternative payment to a vow than to kill an innocent man.

o But Herod did not have the humility to admit his sin, or the conviction to abandon his sin, or the wisdom to see how evil his sin was. He simply made these two excuses (1: Oaths should not be broken, and 2: My guests want me to do it) and dug his pit of sin and judgment even deeper by martyring John the Baptizer.

o Like Cain, when Cain realized that God liked his brother Abel’s offering but not his own, and killed Abel,

o Herod was upset when he realized he was in the wrong, but he didn’t move past being sorry/ grieved/ distressed to look to Jesus to save him from what was wrong. Killing John and living with a spooked conscience was the natural result.

o We all need to be careful to learn from this not to stop at being sorry when we get caught doing something foolish or wrong. We must press past our embarrassment and ask Jesus to forgive us and save us; only then will we find peace.

και πεμψας απεκεφαλισεν [τον[11]] Ιωαννην εν τη φυλακη

· The parallel account in Mark 6:27 says that Herod sent a spekoulatora – Greek lexicographer Joseph Thayer wrote that these spec men were “members of the body guard, employed as messengers, watchers, and executioners.”

· The prison was below the palace, so it wouldn’t have taken long to carry out the execution under cover of the darkness of night after dinner, in the seclusion of the dungeon without any crowds to see and get upset.

14:11 and his head was brought upon a platter and was given to the girl, and she brought [it] to her mother.

και ηνεχθη ‘η κεφαλη αυτου επι[12] πινακι και εδοθη τω κορασιω και ηνεγκεν τη μητρι αυτης.

· Salome’s status drops from “daughter” to “girl” in Matthew’s account. Her foolish willingness to be manipulated by her Mom into asking for such a disgusting thing showed her for what she was, a child without maturity, a little girl, not a princess.

· Some might ask, “How could God have allowed John to be assassinated to ruthlessly?” John Calvin responded to this question by writing, “The Lord sometimes subjects His people to the pride of the ungodly until at last He shows how precious their blood is in His sight. Herodias exulted that she had gained her desire, and cruelly triumphed over her critic, but later on she would be… driven out not only from her royal honor, but even from her birthplace and all help...” for the Emperor Caligula discovered that Herod Antipas was forming a secret alliance with the Parthians against Rome, so the Emperor stripped Herod of his rulership and exiled him to Gaul. Herodias went with him. God’s justice prevails eventually.

Exposition

Herod

· Herod was actually a last name, not a first name, but the culture we’re reading about put the last name first.

· This Herod was the Son of Herod the Great by Malthace the Samaritan, one of his many wives.

· Herod the Great was the one who killed all the babies in Bethlehem. He died shortly thereafter of sickness and divided his kingdom among three of his many sons:

o The last quarter of Herod the Great’s kingdom was given to his son Philip II, whom he had by another wife named Cleopatra, and that tetrarchy included Northern Israel and part of Syria.

o Got all that straight? This is Herod Antipas, one of the three reigning sons of Herod the Great who was ruler over Galilee where Jesus lived and Perea where John lived.

· This Herod Antipas had been up in Rome trying to curry favor with Ceasar, and he was staying with his half-brother Phillip who lived in Rome. Well, Phillip had married a young neice named Herodias. As Herod lived in the house with Phillip and Herodias, he started flirting with her and she returned his affection. Their lustful relationship got them talking about divorcing their spouses and marrying each other.

· But covetousness or lust is deadly because it captures your mind and blinds you to the consequences of sin. Just from a worldly standpoint, it was stupid for Herod to bring home Herodias and send his first wife away, because his first wife was an Arabian princess. The king of Arabia didn’t take too kindly to his daughter being disgraced. As a result, the Arabs started a costly war against Herod. Herod paid dearly for that foolish choice controlled by lust.

· Now, remember when Jesus healed the man with the withered hand at the synagogue in Galilee after the Passover in Jerusalem? Mark 3:6 tells us that, “the Pharisees went out and immediately began conspiring with the Herodians against Him, as to how they might destroy Him.” So it is possible that these buddies of Herod went back to Herod and told him about Jesus, and that’s how Herod heard the fame (or the news report about) Jesus.

· The parallel passage in Luke 9:9 tells us that Herod was hoping to meet Jesus. His wish came true a year or so later when Jesus was on trial before Pilate in Jerusalem, and Pilate realized that Jesus was a citizen of Galilee, so he sent Jesus to Herod, the tetrarch over Galilee, but Jesus wouldn’t talk to him.

· At any rate, when Herod hears about Jesus, his mind goes back to what he did to John the Baptizer whom he had arrested and imprisoned:

o Mark 6:19 tells us that Herod would occasionally listen to John preach and appreciated it, so even though he knew that his wife wanted to kill John, he kept John safe.

o But he was wishy-washy. Matt. 14:5 tells us that sometimes Herod wanted to kill John after all, perhaps because his wife was so intent upon it,

o but even when Herod wanted to kill John, he was influenced by the opinion of the crowds of people in his district who would have objected to him killing John. The only thing that held him back from murder was the disapproval he would face from the crowd if he did it.

o Herod had no internal morality based upon the unchanging word of God. He was subject to the changing whims of people’s opinions. His fear of man set him up to be manipulated.

o “Herod feared that the putting of John to death might raise a mutiny among the people, which it did not; but he never feared it might raise a mutiny in his own conscience, which it did! Men fear being hanged for that which they do not fear being damned for.” ~Matthew Henry

o The parallel passage Mark 6:21 tells us that it included a dinner and tells us who was invited: the big-cheeses (lords), the army majors (tribunes), and the leading men of Galilee.

o A Roman author named Persius, wrote about a festival known as “Herod’s Day,” which may have been one of these birthday occasions. He description of the decorations and the food includes lamps, flowers, incense, plates of cooked fish, and wine: “But when Comes Herod's day, and on the steaming panes The ranged lamps, festooned with violets, pour The unctuous cloud, while the broad tunny-tail Sprawled o’er the red dish swims, and snowy [skins] Swell with the wine.” (Persius, Satires. v., 180-188, as translated by Marvin Vincent)

· Now, considering the fact that Salome, as the only child, was already an heir (I found no record of Herod and Herodias ever having children), it may not have been entirely inappropriate to make an offer like Herod did, after she danced, but knowing the character of the person he offered the favor to, he should have known better, and it stands as a reminder to us to guard our words and not make promises thoughtlessly.

o “Those in whom passion and luxury have destroyed self-command will in a capricious moment say and do what in their cool moments they bitterly regret.” ~JFB

· Here is a further indication of Herod’s moral confusion. Instead of looking to the law of God to set his course, he was looking to the approval of the people around him to set his course:

o This seems to imply that Herod was the sort of man who would not keep his promises – even multiplied oaths (for the word is plural in v.9) unless he would somehow lose face for not keeping them.

o He could have made everything right by confessing that he had sinned against God by an unlawful marriage and by carelessly offering to his immature daughter half of the ruling responsibility which God had entrusted to him. He could have said that it is better in God’s sight to offer an alternative payment to a vow than to kill an innocent man.

o But Herod did not have the humility to admit his sin, or the conviction to abandon his sin, or the wisdom to see how evil his sin was. He simply made these two excuses (1: Oaths should not be broken, and 2: My guests want me to do it) and so he dug his pit of sin and judgment even deeper by martyring John the Baptizer.

o Like Cain, when Cain realized that God liked his brother Abel’s offering but not his own, and killed Abel,

o Herod was upset when he realized he was in the wrong, but he didn’t move past being sorry/ grieved/ distressed to instead look to Jesus to save him from what was wrong. Killing John and living with a spooked conscience was the natural result.

· The parallel account in Mark 6:27 says that Herod sent a spekoulatora to kill John – Greek lexicographer Joseph Thayer wrote that these spec men were “members of the body guard, employed as messengers, watchers, and executioners.”

o The prison was below the palace, so it wouldn’t have taken long to carry out the execution under cover of the darkness of night after dinner, in the seclusion of the dungeon without any crowds to see and get upset.

· From King Saul’s encounter with the witch at Endor, I infer that there is no such thing as dead people becoming ghosts; I believe that when people experience supernatural phenomena described as ghosts, what they are actually experiencing is the actions of evil spirits. Nevertheless, ghost stories were nothing new in Herod’s family. His father, Herod the Great, was said by the historian Josephus (Wars of the Jews, Vol. 1, Ch. 30, P.7) to be haunted by the ghosts of two of his older sons who were killed in a plot between his brother Pheroras’s family and his wife Mariamne the Boethian. It may have been that Mariamne was wanting to knock out other heirs to Herod’s throne so that her son Phillip I would get a larger inheritance. Anyway, it was said that the ghosts of the assassinated heirs tormented Mariamne and the other perpetrators until they confessed their involvement in the assassinations. As a result, Herod the Great disinherited his son Phillip I because of his mom’s involvement in the assassination.

o This means that Phillip’s wife, Herodias was no longer married to an heir to the throne, which was probably a disappointment to her.

Herodias

· Herodias, however was not trying to follow the crowd. She was oriented around her own self and what she wanted.

o She wanted Herod, and she knew that she would have to be manipulative in order to keep a fox like him. If he could get tired of his first wife and dismiss her, he could do the same to Herodias.

o In her mind, John was a threat because John was telling Herod to dump her and go back to his first wife. John was insisting that Herodias go back to her original husband Phillip, whom she viewed as a loser.

o A number of Bible commentators I read concluded that the whole scene with Salome’s dance and Herod’s promise was all contrived by Herodias to knock John off.

o Do you ever find that you feel guilty when you are around a certain person, and all you want to do is get away from that person so you don’t have to feel guilty anymore? That’s the opposite of what God wants you to do. If your conscience is sending alarms, you need to find out if it is alarming you over something that is really a sin, and if so, you need to confess and root out that sin, not ignore it!

· In v.8, Herodias has done something to influence her daughter’s request. The Greek word if probibastheisa, translated “instructed” or “prompted.” It appears only 2 other places in the Bible:

o So here we have a domineering mother imposing upon her daughter to do something evil.

o You parents, while Herodias’ crime is repulsive, I think it is more tempting than we would like to admit to use our children as accomplices in sin. This shows up in co-dependent relationships where each helps the other to continue in some sin, but it can happen in little ways too – watch out!

· In this story, it appears that Herodias wins the day. Some might well ask, “How could God have allowed John to be assassinated to ruthlessly?” John Calvin responded to this question by writing, “The Lord sometimes subjects His people to the pride of the ungodly until at last He shows how precious their blood is in His sight. Herodias exulted that she had gained her desire, and cruelly triumphed over her critic, but later on she would be… driven out not only from her royal honor, but even from her birthplace and all help...” for the Emperor Caligula discovered that Herod Antipas was forming a secret alliance with the Parthians against Rome, so the Emperor stripped Herod of his rulership and exiled him to Gaul. Herodias went with him. God’s justice prevails eventually.

Salome

· Salome, the daughter of Phillip and Herodias was shamed for the conduct of her traitorus grandmother, her father was not able to be a king like her uncles were, and then, when this uncle seduced her mom away from her dad, she got dragged along with her mom to Jordan. And then eventually her Mom and her new dad get exiled to Gaul. What a lot of grief for a girl to bear!

· The Greek word in v.2 describing who it was that heard Herod’s hypothesis that Jesus had supernatural powers because he was John resurrected, is pais, which literally means “child,” and is used of any dependent in a man’s household, including, of course, the servants working in the palace. The Bible doesn’t say who all in Herod’s household heard this, but I suspect that his step-daughter Salome was among those who heard. She had some idea of Jesus.

· Salome wanted to please her parents and, as far as I can tell, was probably a young teenager when this story happened.

o is the same Greek word used of King David dancing worshipfully in the procession with the ark of the covenant (2 Sam. 6:16-21),

o and it’s used as an antonym for mourning in Ecclesiastes 3:4 and Matthew 11:17 (mourning vs. dancing).

o Isaiah also uses this word in his prophecy to describe goats jumping around in the ruins of Babylon (13:21).

o I do not think the evidence is conclusive as to what Salome’s dance was like:

· Matthew’s account portrays Salome as playing the suspense to the hilt as she makes her request to Herod in v.8. I tried to reproduce the way she phrased the sentence in Greek by interrupting the quote (a rare occurrence in Greek, but something Matthew does here) and by saving the bombshell for the very end: “Give me,” she said, having been imposed upon by her mother, “here, upon a platter, the head of John the Baptizer.”

· The parallel passage in Mark has Herodias only wanting the head of John, so the addition of the platter may have been Salome trying to also get something out of the deal.

o Pikani – dish^Wycliffe, charger^{KJV-archaic
word for dish}, trencher^JFB, or platter^Tyndale

o The poor girl was offered anything she wanted – up to half of Herod’s rule, and all she got out of the deal was a serving dish! What a ripoff!

· Salome’s status drops from “daughter” to “girl” in v.11 of Matthew’s account. Her foolish willingness to be manipulated by her Mom into asking for such a disgusting thing showed her for what she was, a child without maturity, a little girl, not a princess.

o Somebody with inside connections had to have informed Mark and Matthew of the details of this VIP birthday party. Is it possible that it was Salome herself, and that she was so ashamed that she prevailed upon the gospel writers not to mention her name? It is only from Josephus the Jewish historian that we get her name, not the Bible.

· Anyway, despite her crime against God’s prophet, God was merciful to Salome later on by giving her a good husband in Phillip II, who was a stable and just ruler, and apparently a faithful husband, unlike Herod.

· Nicephorus, the 9^th Century Byzantine historian related a story which is believed by some other Bible Commentators to be true: According to the story, Salome, later in life, was travelling across a frozen lake (or river) and fell through some thin ice. On her way down, the sharp edges of the ice severed her head from her body, an ironic end to the woman who had John decapitated.

John

· John understood his role in life to be the “voice in the wilderness” calling out to God’s people to turn away from sin and get right with God, which is what the ceremony of his baptisms symbolized, in order to prepare a people to follow Jesus when He revealed Himself as the Messiah.

· Therefore He studied the O.T. law and taught it to people who wanted to get right with God.

Conclusion

As we have surveyed these four characters, who do you find yourself identifying with?

[1] Without explanation, the Critical editions double the alpha in the middle of this word, but this is not a matter of word meaning but rather of spelling rules, whether or not the alpha at the end of tetra (1/4) and the alpha at the beginning of archos (ruler) should elide. The Majority, Byzantine, and Textus Receptus, elide the two into one alpha.

[2] I am deeply indebted to The New Unger Bible Dictionary article on Herod for details on the Herod family.

[3] William Hendriksen dates the death of John the Baptizer as early 29AD.

[4] Vaticanus, Theta, and family 13 add τοτε to strengthen the impression on the reader that the following events happened at a previous time, but this is not necessary, and is not included in Byz., T.R., Maj., or Critical editions of the GNT.

[5] Thus the reading of the Critical editions following the Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and families 1 and 13 manuscripts. The Maj., Byz., and T.R. read etheto which is clearly a synonym (“put” vs. “put away”), and all the English translations I read render the word simply “put.” (Beza deviates by omitting this verb altogether and adding a “the” before the word “prison.”)

[6] Phillip’s name is omitted by the Beza manuscript as well as in the Vulgate. The Beza has an extraordinary number of variants in this passage from almost all other manuscripts, and, although it influenced the translation of several Latin manuscripts, I have largely ignored it here.

[7] Matthew Henry thought that Herod was in on it too and that his sorrow was just a pretence.

[8] The traditional Greek versions (T.R., Byz., Maj., following f¹³ and others) have a Genitive Present Passive Participle with a matching Genitive subject, which could be literally be translated “a birthday-party was being led,” whereas the Modern critical Greek New Testaments (following א, B, D,L, Z) have a Dative Aorist Deponent Participle with a matching Dative subject which could be translated literally, “During a birthday-party happening.” There are also some other manuscripts that have a combination of the above such that the case of the participle does not match the case of the noun (C, K, N, Θ, f¹). The Genitives make the most sense to me, but the Datives seem to have the most ancient manuscript support. At any rate, as you can see from my literal translations, it’s not a significant difference in meaning.

[9] http://womenshistory.about.com/library/weekly/uc_salome_herodias.htm (19 Apr 2010).

[10] Above is the reading of the Byz, T.R., and Majority, following the Sinaiticus, C,L,W, and coinciding with the ancient Vulgate and Syriac translations. The Critical editions follow the Vaticanus (as well as D, Theta, Family 1 & 13) rendering the verb as an indicative instead of a participle (λυπηθεις) and omitting the subsequent conjunction (δε). It doesn’t make for a difference in translation, for the sequential action indicated by two verbs connected by a conjunction can also be expressed in Greek by an aorist participle followed by an indicative verb without a conjunction.

[11] This definite article is not found in the Siniaticus, Vaticanus, or family1, but it doesn’t make a difference because a proper noun like John is already definite.

[12] The KJV “in” translates what a small minority of Greek manuscripts say (Theta, Family 1 and family 13 read εν τω) , although the Textus Receptus reads epi as above.