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The story of John's imprisonment:
v. 3. For Herod had laid hold on John, and bound him, and put him in prison, for Herodias' sake, his brother Philip's wife.
v. 4. For John said unto him, It is not lawful for thee to have her.
v. 5. And when he would have put him to death, he feared the multitude, because they counted him as a prophet.
A laconic account of sordid baseness! Herod had been legally married to the daughter of Aretas, king of Arabia. And Herodias, his niece, daughter of Aristobulus and Berenice, had been married to Philip, the brother of Herod Antipas. But Herod rejected his lawful wife and persuaded Herodias to leave her husband and live with him in an adulterous union, to which the ambitious libertine readily assented. She brought with her a daughter by legal marriage, Salome, who equaled her mother in shamelessness. John had not hesitated about taking Herod to task on account of his heinous sin. The adulterous ruler may have felt the justice of the rebuke, and might have been willing to overlook the frankness of the intrepid preacher. But Herodias resented the reflection upon her, all the more since she must admit the implication. For her sake Herod caused John to be seized, bound, and cast into prison. In the meantime, he was forced to meet the army of Aretas, who took bloody revenge upon Herod for the insult inflicted upon his daughter. If the Romans had not interfered, Herod might have paid dearly for his immoral indulgence. As it was, he was in a quandary, undecided whether he should put John to death, as Herodias urged, or set him free, because the people believed him to be a prophet, and Herod himself was rather deeply affected by John's preaching, Mar_6:20. Whenever he came to Machaerus, the case came up anew to trouble him.