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NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mat_14:1-5
1At that time Herod the Tetrarch heard the news about Jesus, 2and said to his servants, "This is John the Baptist; he has risen from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him." 3For when Herod had John arrested, he bound him and put him in prison because of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip. 4For John had been saying to him, "It is not lawful for you to have her." 5Although Herod wanted to put him to death, he feared the crowd, because they regarded John as a prophet.
Mat_14:1 "At that time Herod the Tetrarch heard the news about Jesus" Matthew apparently inserted a parenthesis between Mat_14:1-2 and Mat_14:13 dealing with the earlier death of John the Baptist. (What Jesus heard in Mat_14:13 was not the death of John the Baptist but the report that Herod had heard about Him and thought that He was John the Baptist come back to life.)
Mat_14:2 "This is John the Baptist" See account in Luk_9:7-9.
▣ "that is why miraculous powers are at work in him" Herod apparently was superstitious and this magnified his guilt over the beheading of John the Baptist. There are no historical records of John the Baptist ever performing any miracles.
Mat_14:3 "Herod had John arrested, he bound him and put him in prison" We learn from Josephus'Antiquities of the Jews 18.5.2 that this was the prison of Machaerus (cf. Mat_4:12; Mat_11:2). It was apparently a high, impregnable fortress to the southeast of the Dead Sea on the border of the Nabatean Empire. It is interesting to note that Herod's first wife successfully defected to her father, Aretas (cf. 2Co_11:32), by requesting to come to this particular summer palace. Later, her father had a military clash with her former husband, Herod Antipas, and totally defeated him. Herod would have been removed from office then if the Roman authorities had not intervened.
▣ "Herodias" The New Testament TransLine by Michal Magill has a good summary of her.
" She was the grand-daughter of Herod the Great, the daughter of Aristobulus, the sister of Agrippa I. See Mat_2:1. She married Herod Philip I, a paternal brother of her father. Later, she left him and married Herod Antipas, also a paternal brother of her father by a different wife. She chose to go into exile with Antipas when he was exiled in a.d. 39" (p. 49).
Mat_14:4 "for John had been saying to him" The verb is imperfect tense which meant repeated action in past time. John had apparently made this accusation repeatedly. These charges were based either on Herod Antipas and Herodias (his niece) being too closely related to be married (cf. Lev_18:16), or more probably, because they were each had been illegally divorced (cf. Deu_24:1-4).
Mat_14:5 "Although Herod wanted to put him to death, he feared the crowd" This seems to be in direct contradiction to Mat_14:9. However, the schizophrenia of these eastern potentates was notorious. Apparently there was a fascination with John because Herod often called him to talk with him (cf. Mar_6:20), yet at the same time, there was great fear!
▣ "because they regarded John as a prophet" Jesus said in Mat_11:7-11 that John was the last OT prophet and the greatest man ever born of woman under the old covenant. See hyperlink at Mat_11:9.