According to Herod
Lord, direct me in my speaking that those who hear may learn more of your love for us and your expectations of us. Amen.
It’s not easy being a King; let me tell you! After more than 30 years of constant challenge to my authority as the King of the Jews, let alone what it cost me to gain the throne, you would think I might be granted some respite in my old age. But no, only yesterday three Magi, each with their own entourage turned up at the Palace saying they had come to worship the newly born King of the Jews. If they hadn’t been so convincing about the signs that pointed to this new threat to my position, I would have had them thrown out of Judaea for failing to acknowledge me, the true King.
Let me introduce myself; I am Herod the Great and I have ruled this land and its Jewish people for 34 years. They are an ungrateful lot who are always finding reasons to disagree with me on some legal point even after I spent eight years restoring their Temple in Jerusalem to its current splendour. As I’m sure you know there is a proverb, widely used, that says, “He who has not seen Herod’s building has never seen anything beautiful”.
My father, Antipater the Idumean would, I am sure, be proud of what I have achieved. I learned a great deal from him, not least of which was how to ensure that the Romans were appeased and kept onside. I was just 11 years old when the Romans, under the command of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (or Pompey as he was better known) took over Judea and made my father the Procurator and put him in charge of the Romans interest. My father always looked after his family and when I was 25 he made me Prefect of Galilee; my first senior post.
As I’m sure I mentioned I am the King of the Jews and a practising Jew but that; but those wretched Pharisees have never accepted me as a real Jew because I come from Idumea, so it was no surprise when, as Prefect, they objected to me executing a band of fanatics who had been attacking towns in Galilee. Their high priest Hyrcanus, a truly weak leader, accepted the claim of the Sanhedrin that only they had the right to try, and pass sentence of death on, those fanatics. I was arrested and taken before the Sanhedrin to account for my behaviour. You should have seen their faces when I turned up attended by a squad of my personal guards wearing purple instead of the customary black the accused was expected to wear.
As I said you should not underestimate the importance of keeping in with the Romans; who, by the way had been rather pleased about the way I dealt with the fanatics. When I handed over a letter from Sextus Caesar threatening the high priest Hyrcanus with dire consequences if any harm became me, they quickly changed their minds and I was released. I imagine that you are wondering what happened with those three Magi I spoke about earlier; and I will get back to that when I have given you a chance to understand a little better what is required from someone like me if I am to retain my authority.
I am sure that you will have heard about the murder of Julius Caesar in Rome 38 years ago in a conspiracy led by Cassius and Brutus. I can tell you it caused turmoil in the Roman Empire and lead to the assassination of my friend and protector, Sextus Caesar, within a year of Julius Caesar’s death. Fortunately I was able to gain the friendship of Cassius, who by then was governor of Syria, by taxing a hundred talents of silver from the Jews to contribute to his war chest. Money is so important to people in power and Cassius was no different; why, he even helped me to avenge the poisoning of my father by tricking the poisoner, Malich, into returning to Judaea so I could have him killed.
It was around that time that I married my beautiful second wife, Mariamne, who gave me my second and third sons, Alexander and Aristobulus. I did love those boys; they were my favourites; much preferred to my first son Antipater II. That’s why I sent them to Rome to be educated at the Imperial Court and to live in the household of Augustus himself while Antipater and his mother Doris were exiled.
I had another eight wives after Mariamne, but she was undoubtedly my favourite. You cannot imagine the guilt I suffered when I had to have her executed when the boys were not yet teenagers, following an accusation of adultery while I was away in Rhodes. I am not even sure now whether the accusation was true but you must understand the importance of maintaining my credibility as King. I certainly felt no guilt when I had Mariamne’s mother Alexandra executed a year later.
Yes, I’m sure you picked up the fact that I had moved on from mere Prefect of Galilee to be King of Judaea. It was a position that cost me dearly in bribes and bloodshed to win the approval of the Romans. Inevitably the murderers of Julius Caesar fell out of favour so the very large bribes I had to pay went to Mark Antony; not to mention the pride I had to swallow when flattering the man. It was about that time that Cleopatra offered me a generalship in her army in Egypt which I declined because I had higher things in mind.
I set off to Rome and you cannot imagine my joy when, with the help of Mark Antony and Octavianus, the Senate invested me with the kingship. For the first 15 years of my reign my kingdom grew as Augustus allowed me to annex many of the districts surrounding Judaea. Surprisingly there were many who sought to conspire against me but I found, and I do recommend it, that swift action accompanied by an excess of cruelty were very effective in maintaining my kingdom.
What people like these Magi do not seem to grasp is that there are always people ready to challenge the existing rulers and to seek to take their kingdom from them what kind of fool would I be if I simply ignored the birth of a child who might later come to oppose me? If you need any evidence of the risk it is there in the actions of my two favourite sons Alexander and Aristobulus who, having returned from Rome with their newly acquired polished Roman manners, decided to avenge their mother’s execution. Can you imagine it? They conspired against their own father! Extraordinary!
What else could I do? I brought my new favourite son Antipater back from exile with his mother Doris and gave him a leading post in my court. Antipater was a man after my own heart who with forged letters and evidence extorted from tortured slaves made the case I needed to impeach Alexander and Aristobulus! I had them strangled shortly after their trial.
Had I known when they were born just how much trouble they would be when they grew up they would not have lived beyond their second birthday. This was certainly on my mind when I met with the Magi and heard their story about the birth of a child; acclaimed King of the Jews even before he was born. You will surely see that I had no choice; I could not simply ignore what I was being told by such knowledgeable and experienced men. They had travelled so far, following a star in the east, to worship a baby. Yes that’s right, a baby!
Rather than raise their suspicions I gave them accommodation in my palace and allowed them to refresh themselves and their entourage. While they were resting I called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law and asked them where this Christ child was supposed to be born.
The fact that they were able, immediately, to refer to a prophecy from the Prophet Micah about the truth of this coming birth made me take the matter all the more seriously. What a sly bunch of hypocrites these priests and scribes must be. I have no doubt that they felt equally threatened by this baby as did I; and they must have spotted the opportunity to encourage me to take action when they glibly quoted the Prophet:
“But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel”. If the prediction of the ruler was what upset me then I’m sure the prediction that this child would shepherd the people of Israel was what upset them.
I have always found it interesting that, despite their confidence in the predictions of the Jewish prophets, none of these chief priests or scribes bothered to go to Bethlehem to see their Messiah.
I called the Magi together in a secret meeting and pretended, rather cleverly I thought, that I too wished to worship this new King. Let’s face it I am almost 70 so I hoped they would think me ready to pass on my kingdom to a new person. I encouraged them to continue their search and come back to me when they had found the child to let me know where he lived. Well, I am not entirely sure what happened when they found the child but these Magi betrayed my trust and never came back to me. Perhaps the child’s parents persuaded them that my motives were not genuine; perhaps they begged for the life of their child; or maybe the Magi never intended to help me; never understood how difficult my role is as King.
Whatever the reason, they underestimated my determination to maintain my power and that of my family. I have looked at some of the prophecies about this child since I sent the Magi to find him and, quite frankly, the evidence suggests that this new King is unlikely to be as ruthless as he will need to be if he is to bring peace to the people of Israel. But I could not afford to take the chance; and in fact I didn’t really need to take the chance. The solution was simple; kill the child before he becomes a threat!
How, I hear you ask, can you do that if you do not even know where the child lives. Well may be you were not listening carefully enough. The solution was simple; kill every male child in Bethlehem or the vicinity, born within the last two years (as a margin of safety) and the job is done. Slaughtering a few innocent children is as nothing to the mass slaughters I have undertaken during my reign; not even worthy of being recorded. Bethlehem is a small place so how can a few children matter more than the good of my continued reign?
After I gave the orders the behaviour of my son Antipater was a testimony to my wisdom in removing threats at the first opportunity. It turned out that he was still angry about the exile of his mother and himself and plotted to rid himself of me, his father! Too many people knew of his plots and his conviction at trial was a foregone conclusion. I reported the matter to Augustus and asked for permission to execute him, which he duly gave. I am told that after the execution Augustus was heard to comment, “It were better to be Herod’s swine than his son”. Very droll, and true enough. How could I, a practising Jew, kill pigs.
Well, there we have it; the testimony of Herod. Of course Herod’s plan to kill the Christ child failed miserably and Herod died in 4BC, shortly afterwards, while Jesus lived. Herod never discovered in this world what to his failure would mean for the world. He even failed to retain his kingdom for his family because the Romans, eventually disgusted by his appalling behaviour refused to grant to any of his children the title of King. Indeed 30 years later it was the Roman Governor Pilate who was to order the words, “Jesus Christ, King of the Jews” to be written on a plaque and placed on the cross at our Lord’s crucifixion.
All the evil people in the world could not, and cannot, thwart God’s plans for his creation. The Magi, just like the shepherds, found the baby Jesus and fell on their knees to worship him. When they did so they acknowledged not only that God had come to Earth as a man but, in the gifts they gave him, that his mission was salvation from sin for anyone choosing to believe in him.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Note: The population of Bethlehem at the time was approximately 1,500 and the demographics suggest that at any point in time there might have been around twenty children under two (of which half would be girls).
