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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Kitto Evening Bible Devotions: August 21
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Mat_14:1-4; Mar_1:14; Mar_6:17-20
This is the same Herod who had succeeded to the tetrarchy after the death of Herod the Great, and who therefore had, during nearly the whole of our Lord’s lifetime, been prince of the country to which He belonged. This Herod, surnamed Antipas, inherited the vices but not the talents of his father, though he manifested considerable address in preventing or suppressing popular commotions in his dominions.
Herod had long been married to the daughter of Aretas, king of Arabia—that is, of the Arabian district bordering on Syria, and lying beyond Herod’s own territories east of the Jordan—for his tetrarchy comprehended not only Galilee but Perea beyond that river. But on a journey which Herod took to Rome to pay his court to the emperor, he visited Herod-Philip, his brother by the father’s side, who was married to Herodias, who was the sister of both by the father’s side. These three persons then stood in this relation to each other—that they were all children of the same father by different mothers. Herodias, though past her youth, was a very charming, but unscrupulous and ambitious woman. Herod was smitten with her beauty and winning manners, and availed himself of the freedom of access which his near relationship afforded, to endeavor to alienate her from her husband, his brother, and to gain her for himself. He was probably met half-way—for Herodias was weary of the comparatively obscure and private life she led with her husband, and longed to move in the greatly superior sphere to which Herod could raise her. It was then agreed then between them that he should make her his wife when he returned from Rome. To be sure, they were both already married; but this was no insuperable obstacle to persons who, like most of the Herodian family, were accustomed to make all considerations of right or propriety bend to their own inclinations. It was therefore agreed that Herod should divorce his wife. This he might do without any material public scandal—as the practice of divorcing a wife for any cause, or without any cause, had become very common in that age, and was strongly rebuked by our Savior. Herodias also agreed to divorce her husband. This was a public scandal; being wholly alien to the ideas and habits of the Jews—especially as the existing marriage had not been fruitless. The highest classes had, however, borrowed this practice from the Romans, with whom they had much intercourse; and they sometimes assumed the same license, though their example could never reconcile the public mind to it.
Before Herod returned, this conspiracy against her happiness came to the ears of his wife, who thereupon fled to her father. This step was probably not unpleasant to Herod, who, on his return, made Herodias his wife.
The proceeding was, however, altogether abhorrent to public opinion, which even Herodian tyrants do not deem it safe to disregard. Herod therefore felt uneasy, and sent for John the Baptist, in the expectation that if he could obtain his sanction for what had been done, the people, who, as the king knew held the prophet in great respect, would be satisfied. But if Herod hoped to win or overawe John into a favorable opinion of his conduct, he was grievously mistaken. He had to do with one who feared not the face of man, and whom kings were powerless to turn one hair’s breadth from the line of truth and duty. He said plainly, “It is not lawful for thee to have her;” and for that saying he was cast into prison.
Herod himself, perhaps—who had as much respect for John as so bad a man could have—might have passed it over. But Herodias, who was in the highest degree exasperated at this adverse declaration from one whose word had so much weight with the people, craved his destruction; and her influence was at this time so powerful with her companion in guilt, that she would probably have prevailed upon him to slay the prophet, but for the salutary fear which he entertained of the effect which a deed so atrocious might produce among the people. He did, however, cast him into prison; and there he remained until the watchful vengeance of Herodias succeeded in accomplishing his destruction.
Every one in perusing this narrative feels that he understands why it was not lawful for Herod to have Herodias. Yet the question has been raised, on what ground John declared this marriage to be unlawful. This, however, it does not seem difficult to find. We must understand that “unlawful” means, contrary to the letter or spirit of the law of Moses; and certainly this deed involved more than one transgression of that law.
In the first place, it was unlawful for a man to marry one who was his sister even by one parent only. This, indeed, equally applies to the first marriage; but that did not make the analogous second marriage more lawful. Then the divorce of her husband by Herodias was unlawful, and therefore void; and such being the case, the marriage contracted immediately after, while the husband still lived, was void, and Herod and Herodias were living in a state of adultery together. Had Herodias not been the sister of Herod; had her husband been dead; and had there been no issue by that marriage, it might not only have been lawful but obligatory on Herod to marry Herodias. For the law required that when a man died childless, his brother should take his widow, in order that the firstborn child of his union should be counted as the child and heir of the deceased brother. But none of these conditions existed here. Herodias was the sister of Herod—and that by the father’s side—which was held to constitute a nearer relationship than by the mother’s side only; her husband was living; and there had been issue by the marriage—in the person of that damsel whose dancing subsequently cost John the Baptist his head. If Philip had been dead, and if he had died childless (which would have created an obligation upon Herod in any other case), it would still have been “unlawful” for Herod to have taken Herodias, because she was his sister.
It therefore seems to us that the reasons why it was not lawful for Herod to have Herodias are, that she was his sister, and that she was the wife of a man still living—and this man was his own brother—which, however it may have affected the legal bearings of the question, was certainly a strong aggravation of the moral enormity of the transaction. The Jewish writers who speak of this marriage, always do so with reprehension, making the culpability rest either upon the fact that Herodias was his own sister, or upon that of her being the wife of Herod’s still-living brother; and Josephus seems to include the woman’s divorce of her husband along with this, when he describes the whole transaction as “confounding the laws of the country”—a strong expression on his part of its unlawfulness. The crime was twofold—that of adultery and incest—and therefore doubly “unlawful.”
We shall ere long have to witness the result.