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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - Matthew 14:3 - 14:3
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Put him in prison
(ἐν φυλακῇ απέθετο). Lit., “put him away or aside” (ἀπὸ). 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 inclosure, 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. “We return through what we regard as the ruins of the magnificent castle-palace of Herod, to the highest and strongest part of the defences - the eastern keep or the citadel, on the steep slope, one hundred and fifty yards up. The foundations of the walls all around, to the height of a yard or two above the ground, are still standing. As we clamber over them to examine the interior, we notice how small this 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 nigh ten months, been the prison of that son of the free wilderness, the bold herald of the coming kingdom, the humble, earnest, self-denying John the Baptist” (Edersheim, “Life and Times of Jesus”).