Who was Herod Antipas?

Grandson of Herod the Great, and son of Aristobulus and Berenice. He was appointed by the emperor Caligula to the government of Ituraea and Abilene, with the title of king. Eventually he had the government of Judaea and Samaria given to him by Claudius. He was an observer of the law of Moses, and added to the extent of Jerusalem by a wall on the north of the city. It was he who put to death James the son of Zebedee to please the Jews, and imprisoned Peter, who was miraculously delivered. His miserable end is recorded in Acts 12.

Son of Herod the Great by Malthace a Samaritan. He succeeded his father in the tetrarchy of Galilee and Peraea. This was he whom the Lord called 'that fox.' He heard John the Baptist 'gladly,' yet put him to death. He was present at Jerusalem when the Lord was before Pilate, and by the courtesy of Pilate they settled their difference; but he treated the Lord with brutal indignity. He had married a daughter of Aretas king of Arabia, but subsequently induced Herodias the wife of Philip, his own half-brother, to leave her husband and live with him. This led to the death of John the Baptist by her desire, as recorded in scripture; and also to his being attacked and defeated with great loss by Aretas. Prompted by Herodias, he sought from the emperor Caligula the title of king (which did not belong to him though so called in Mark 6:14), but this ambition led to his perpetual banishment, A.D. 39. Herodias voluntarily accompanied him.

HEROD ANTIPAS was the second son of Herod the Great. He became tetrarch of Galilee, and is chiefly noticed in Scripture because of his relations with John the Baptist. Herod had committed the grievous sin of persuading his brother Philip’s wife to desert her husband and marry him. John had faithfully rebuked Herod to his face, thus incurring his anger, as also that of his unlawful wife, Herodias, who nursed bitter revenge in her heart. Herod flung John into prison, and would have killed him, but he feared the people, who esteemed him as a prophet.

The day came when Herod gave a birthday supper to his lords, chief captains and chief estates of Galilee. On this august occasion the daughter of Herodias danced before the assembled company, and so captivated Herod, that for a reward he offered her even to the half of his kingdom. Here was the occasion for Herodias to carry out her design of revenge. She instructed her daughter to ask for the head of John the Baptist on a charger. The King was exceedingly sorry, yet for his oath’s sake sent an executioner to carry out his gruesome order. When the head of this man of God, gory and dripping with blood, was handed on a charger to the daughter of Herodias, she carried it to her mother. However, this unhappy marriage soon reaped its sad fruit.

Son of Herod the Great, but not called Antipas in the N.T. See HEROD.

The Herod mentioned here is not the Herod in the second chapter of the Gospel. The Herod under which the children of Bethlehem were slain was Herod the Great, an Idumean who had been proclaimed king of the Jews by Rome and exercised his evil reign under the protection of Rome. After his death Archelaus became tetrarch of Judea, Samaria and Idumea, Philip of Trachonitis and Herod Antipas of Galilee and Peraea, who also had the title of tetrarch. It is this Herod who is before us in this chapter He was married to a daughter of King Aretas of Arabia. He lived, however, in open adultery with Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip. Like his father, Herod the Great, he was a wicked man, the murderer of John the Baptist. He was followed by Herod Agrippa, under whose regime the persecution of the Christians broke out in Jerusalem.

A change had recently taken place in the government of Judæa and Samaria. After the death of Herod the Great, who ruled over the whole land, his son Archelaus was appointed by the Emperor Augustus ruler over Judæa, Idumæa and Samaria, with the title of Ethnarch. To Herod Antipas, his brother, were assigned Galilee and Peræa with the title of Tetrarch. And to Philip, the other brother, was given the tetrarchy of Trachonitis, Auranitis, Batanæa, and part of what was called the house of Zenon, or Zenodorus. Herod Antipas fixed his capital at Tiberias. Philip had for his, Cæsarea Philippi. [47] Archelaus, after ruling about ten years, was deprived of his province for his severities, and a Roman governor under the Syrian Prefect administered its affairs. Herod Antipas was banished in AD 39. Philip died in his government AD 34. Under Claudius a fresh change took place; for Herod Agrippa, the son of Aristobulus, and grandson therefore of Herod the Great, who had previously received from the Emperor Caligula the tetrarchies of his two uncles, Antipas and Philip, received in addition, as soon as Claudius was settled on the Imperial throne, part of the territory formerly assigned to Archelaus - viz., the provinces of Judæa and Samaria, with the title of king. Thus for a brief space a king again reigned in Judæa in the person of Herod Agrippa, who lived chiefly at Jerusalem. A strict observer of the law, but receiving his kingdom from the Emperor, he doubtless sought to win favour with the Jews by laying hands on Apostles to put them to death. It was evidently a political, and, as the king thought, a politic, move on his part.

Literally the governor over a fourth part of a province, but also applied to the governor of any small province. It is employed in the N.T. in reference to Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea; Philip, tetrarch of Ituraea and Trachonitis; and Lysanias, tetrarch of Abilene. Mal. 14:1; Luke 3:1, 19; Luke 9:7; Acts 13:1.

In Matthew 14, then, we get in a short historical setting a vivid description of the moral corruption of things in Israel's land. Shortly, the case was this. Herod Antipas was a son of Herod, miscalled "the Great," of Matthew 2. He was the wicked son of a wicked father. At the death of Herod I. the kingdom was divided by the Romans, and Herod Antipas became "tetrarch" of Galilee, with the courtesy title of "king." He married a daughter of Aretas, King of Arabia, but afterwards made guilty overtures to Herodias, his brother Herod Philip's wife. Nothing loth, the profligate wanton responded, and the two were living in open sin.

Herod Antipas and John

Herod Antipas*, son of Herod the Great, was tetrarch of Galilee, the northern part of his father's dominions, when John the Baptist came into the country round about the Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins and the immediate coming of the Messiah (Luke 3:1-3). This voice crying in the wilderness resounded in the palace of the king. John spoke of an Anointed One whose coming was imminent, and Herod may have feared in Him, who was announced to appear, a possible rival to his throne, the tenure of which was so notoriously frail. He could hardly have entirely forgotten the incident which happened less than thirty years before when there came Eastern magi to his father's court in Jerusalem, seeking Him who was born King of the Jews. He may also have remembered, amongst other of his father's deeds of blood and cruelty, the horrible slaughter of the babes of Bethlehem perpetrated to ensure the death of the Royal Child. We think it must have been so, for conscience stimulates the most sluggish memory, and Antipas was riot altogether dead to conscience.

The forerunner had been beheaded but the Christ of God was there. The king had shown his enmity to God in his treatment of His servant. An opportunity had been afforded him of repentance for his sin of incest. He refused to avail himself of it. And as one sin leads on so often to another, he, at the instance of the daughter of Herodias, guided by her mother, put his reprover to death. Later on, Herod and the Lord, about whom he was now hearing, did meet, but evidently no conscience-work had wrought repentance in the king's soul. The murderer of John set the Lord at nought, mocked Him, and in derision arrayed Him in a gorgeous robe, and sent Him back to Pilate. At length, about A.D. 40, his hitherto unchecked career of crime was arrested. He was deprived of his tetrarchy by Caligula, and banished to Gaul, and, as some state, died in Spain. He died in exile; his victim died in prison at the hand of the executioner. John will reign with Christ. Herod — where will he be?

It was the son of this man who ruled as Tetrarch in Galilee at the time of the crucifixion. He was called Herod Antipas. What religion the father had was of an architectural nature, but the son liked a good sermon: he "sat under" John the Baptist and "heard him gladly." (Mark 6:20.) "Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just man and an holy, and observed him; and when he heard him, he did many things … " and that is more than everyone who "sits under" a popular preacher does. So that "he was not all bad." No, but in a sense he was worse than if he had been. Notwithstanding all this he continued to live in the vilest debauchery, eventually murdered his religious teacher, and joined himself with the royal and priestly conspirators who put to death the Son of God. When men show a religious tendency and at the same time live bad lives, it is usual to speak of them as hypocrites, to impute to them deliberate deception; but this is often very incorrect. Such men as Herod Antipas are entirely and morbidly sincere in their religion. Their consciences are not conveniently hardened like those of men of the nature of Herod the Great, or Nero, who took a distinct pleasure in doing evil. A conscience at any time may be said to be an inconvenient and expensive thing to keep; but a conscience like that of Antipas, just strong and superstitious enough to worry and haunt him with his misdeeds, (Mark 6:16) but not strong enough to keep him from perpetrating them, must be almost intolerable. It is difficult to understand how such a man could be an object of affection to any living creature; and yet Herodias, vile-natured as she was, going from one of her half-brothers to another, subtle instigator of murder and worse, — Herodias left everything for him, first her husband and her honourable position, and finally followed him to Gaul into poverty and banishment when he was subsequently disgraced.