All of the Women of the Bible by Edith Deen

Author:Edith Deen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2012-08-11T16:00:00+00:00

HERODIAS

MATT. 14:3, 6

MARK 6:17, 19, 22

LUKE 3:19

As the second wife of Herod Antipas, she demands through her daughter the head of John the Baptist, because he had denounced her marriage. She receives this ghastly gift on a platter.

* * *

SHE OCCASIONED THE BEHEADING OF JOHN THE BAPTIST

THE most striking example in the New Testament of how far reaching can be the evil influence of a heartless, determined woman in a high position is the story of Herodias. Not only did she occasion the beheading of John the Baptist, but it may even be that she helped to hasten the crucifixion of Christ. It was to her husband, Herod Antipas, that Jesus was sent by Pilate, and Herod might have delayed the verdict. This was the same Herod whom Jesus earlier had compared to a “fox” because of his cunning (Luke 13:32).

Herodias herself, like her husband, was descended from a line of wicked people. Though the story in the Bible relates only one scene in her life, the beheading of John the Baptist, let us view her entire life from the pages of history in order better to understand what kind of woman she was.

Her first marriage had been to her half-uncle Herod Philip. She entered into a second incestuous and illicit union when she divorced him to marry his half-brother Herod Antipas, who was the stepbrother of her father Aristobulus. This Herod Antipas was tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea during Jesus’ time and he is mentioned more frequently in the New Testament than any other Herod.

To Herodias’ first union had been born her dancing daughter, to whom Josephus gives the name of Salome, though in the New Testament she is never identified in any way except as Herodias’ daughter. The daughter was born of the Herod family on both her father’s and mother’s side and must have been brought up in the evil atmosphere of the family. We are told she excelled in sensuous dancing.

History shows us that evil ran all through Herodias’ life. She was a granddaughter of Herod the Great, who carved out his empire with a sword and sought to destroy the child Jesus (Matt. 2:13). The family line of Herod has become so entangled as to make it a veritable puzzle to historians. They record that he had ten wives and killed his first wife Mariamne, the only human being he ever seems to have loved. Herodias’ father, Aristobulus, was the son of Herod the Great by this Mariamne.

After Herodias’ first marriage to Herod Philip, history records, she lived in Rome, where her husband had been exiled and disinherited because his mother had taken part in a plot against his father, Herod the Great. There Herodias and her husband, Herod Philip, entertained as their guest her husband’s half-brother, Herod Antipas. He had come to Rome to receive his investiture as tetrarch and at this time was married to the daughter of King Aretas of Arabia.

Herod Antipas, while a guest in his half-brother’s home, indulged in a guilty relationship with the brother’s wife, Herodias.

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