Who were the Herodians?

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.

The name comes from Herod, and refers to those who took part with him and his successors in leavening the Jews with Grecian and Roman manners and licentiousness. In scepticism they sided with the Sadducees, but were strongly opposed to the Pharisees. This makes it the more striking that they should have united with the latter in endeavouring to entrap the Lord in His speech. Matt. 22:16; Mark 3:6; Mark 12:13. Their evil principles may well come under the term 'the leaven of Herod.' Mark 8:15.

See HEROD ANTIPAS and HEROD'S FAMILY.

First (v. 15), the Pharisees gather together and take counsel together, seeking to entangle Him in His words. They hold strongly themselves to the Jewish self-government, as being the people of Jehovah who were not to be subject to the Gentiles. The Herodians, on the contrary, attached themselves to Herod's dynasty, representing the imperial power of Rome which had placed him there as a subordinate king. They thought that, if Jesus acknowledged the Roman authority, He would lose in the eyes of the people His character of Messiah who was to deliver them from that yoke; if He rejected that authority, they might denounce Him to the civil power. It was of small moment to them that they should be inconsistent, if they could only get rid of God and His truth. The bitterest foes become friends to rid themselves of Christ. As Herod and Pilate, Pharisees and Herodians, Pharisees and Sadducees, all the world agree for that. The Pharisees and the Herodians came then together to question Him, and ask, while flattering Him for His integrity, if, yes or no, one ought to pay tribute to Caesar. The Lord, perceiving clearly their hypocrisy, points it out to them; then He asks them to shew Him the current money with which they paid the tribute in the country. Whose image and superscription did this piece bear? They say to Him, Caesar's. Render then, said He, to Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and to God the things which are God's. God had subjected the Jews for their sins to the Gentiles; they should own His hand and submit to this yoke, until God according to His promise should free them from it. Meanwhile they should render to God the things which are God's. They were doing neither the one nor the other. Rebels against God in all their ways, they were constantly rising against the Romans. Astonished at the Lord's answer, they leave Him to go their way.

The Herodians, on the contrary, accepted the Roman authority, and did not trouble themselves about Israel's privileges: but they were ready at all costs to seek the good favour of that powerful people, who held the people Israel under its heavy yoke by God's judgment. Now if the Lord had said that they ought not to pay tribute, He would shew Himself hostile to the Romans sway, and the Herodians would be ready to accuse Him; if He said that they ought to pay, He was not the Messiah who should free His people from the hated Roman yoke. They did not think of any other deliverance: and hence He would have lost the favour of the people. The Herodians and Pharisees were reconciled for the purpose of getting rid of the Lord: but divine wisdom answers to every difficulty.

The Pharisees were the religionists of the day, the descendants of the patriotic men who had so nobly supported the Maccabees in the War of Independence. The Herodians were those who, in their endeavour to perpetuate the national existence at any cost, were willing to give up the national faith, in order to support the anti-national Idumean succession of the family of the Herods. These two classes, whose principles were diametrically opposite, and who hated each other with age-long hatred, agreed together to tempt the Lord. With divine wisdom, and grace combined, the Lord meets these men. Showing them that He knew their thoughts and thereby exposing them to themselves, He sought to deliver them from the snare of Satan into which they had fallen. Had the rights of God been rendered to Him, Caesar and his legions would have had no power in their land. The reply was unanswerable, but though they marvelled, they did not believe.

The sect of the Herodians may have been the partisans of Herod, and chiefly political in their character, their main object being the maintenance of the national independence of the Jews, in the face of Roman power and ambition. They may have thought to use Herod for the accomplishing of this end. In the Gospel history they are represented as acting craftily towards the blessed Lord, and in concert with the Pharisees. (Matt. 22:15-16; Mark 12:13-14)

With what cunning.and flattery they had approached Him. For once they spoke the truth when they had declared, "Thou art true and teachest the way of God in truth." But He knew them, He read their thoughts and sinister purpose.

The temptation was a very subtle one. The Pharisees had no doubt planned it all amongst themselves and had brought the Herodians along as witnesses to take down His answer. The Herodians were mean, low Jews, who favored the political rule and Roman authority and that, no doubt, for selfish reasons. Had the Lord answered the question in the negative and had He forbidden to give tribute to Caesar, these Herodians with the Pharisees (whom the Herodians must have hated) would certainly have accused the Lord as being a conspirator against the Roman government. Had the Lord answered the question in the affirmative and demanded that Caesar should receive tribute, the Pharisees would have claimed that He could not be the Messiah of Israel, inasmuch as He taught subjection under a Gentile King. "There was a strong party in the land, with which, not only politically but religiously, many of the noblest spirits would sympathize, which maintained, that to pay the tribute money to Caesar was virtually to own his royal authority, and so to disown that of Jehovah, who alone was Israel 's King. They argued that all the miseries of the land and the people were due to this national unfaithfulness." (Edersheim.)

After this (Matt. 22:15, et seq.) the different classes of the Jews come forward, each in turn. First, the Pharisees and the Herodians (that is, those who favoured the authority of the Romans, and those who were opposed to it) seek to entangle Jesus in His talk. The blessed Lord answers them with that perfect wisdom that ever displayed itself in all He said and all He did. On their part, it was pure wickedness manifesting a total want of conscience. It was their own sin that had brought them under the Roman yoke — a position contrary indeed to that which should have belonged to the people of God on earth. Apparently therefore Christ must either become an object of suspicion to the authorities, or renounce His claim to be the Messiah and consequently the Deliverer. Who had occasioned this dilemma? It was the fruit of their own sins. The Lord shows them that they had themselves accepted the yoke. The money bore the mark of this: let them render it then to those unto whom it belonged, and let them also — which they were not doing — render unto God the things that were God's. He leaves them under the yoke which they were obliged to confess they had accepted. He reminds them of the rights of God; which they had forgotten. Such might moreover have been Israel's state according to the establishment of power in Nebuchadnezzar, as a "spreading vine of low stature."

After this come the various classes of Jews — the Pharisees first of all, and, strange consorts! the Herodians. Ordinarily they were, as men say, natural enemies. The Pharisees were the high ecclesiastical party; the Herodians, on the contrary, were the low worldly courtier party: those, the strong sticklers for tradition and righteousness according to the law; these, the panderers to the powers that then were for whatever could be got in the earth. Such allies now joined hypocritically against the Lord. The Lord meets them with that wisdom which always shines in His words and ways. They demand whether it be lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not. "Show me," says He, "the tribute money … And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? They say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." Thus the Lord deals with the facts as they then came before Him. The piece of money they produced proved their subjection to the Gentiles. It was their sin which had put them there. They writhed under their masters; but still under alien masters they were; and it was because of their sin. The Lord confronts them not only with the undeniable witness of their subjection to the Romans, but also with a graver charge still, which they had entirely overlooked — the claims of God, as well as of Caesar. "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's." The money you love proclaims that you are slaves to Caesar. Pay, then, to Caesar his dues. But forget not to "render to God the things that are God's." The fact was, they hated Caesar only less than they hated the true God. The Lord left them therefore under the reflections and confusion of their own guilty consciences.

"Then went the Pharisees and took counsel how they might entangle Him in His talk. And they sent out unto Him their disciples with the Herodians." What an alliance! The Pharisees (partisans of strict Judaism and the law) and the Herodians (the political time-servers of that day, whom the former hated cordially), join in flattering Jesus to ensnare Him by the question of Jewish title against the Gentile. Would He, the Messiah, gainsay the hopes and exalted privileges of Israel as a nation? If not, how escape the charge of treason against Caesar? Diabolical craft was there, but divine wisdom brings in the just balance of truth as to God and human authority, and the difficulty vanishes. It was the rebellion of the Jews against Jehovah which gave occasion to His subjecting them to their heathen lords. Were they humbled because of it, and seeking the resources of God's grace? Nay, but proud and boastful; and their conflicting parties at this very time uniting in deadly opposition to God, plotting against their own, and His, Messiah. "Tell us, therefore: what thinkest Thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar or not? But Jesus perceived their wickedness and said, Why tempt ye Me, ye hypocrites? Show Me the tribute money" (vers. 17-19). They brought a denarius, and owned to Caesar's image and superscription upon it, and heard the sentence of Wisdom: "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." Had the Jews honoured Him, they had never been in bondage to Gentile dominion; but now, being so through their own sin and folly, they were bound to accept their humiliation. Neither Pharisee nor Herodian felt the sin; and if one felt the shame which the other gloried in, the Lord, while forcing them to face the real position to which their iniquity had reduced them, pointed out that which, if they heeded it, would be the speedy harbinger of a divine deliverance.

Looking back, the disciples might have remembered that before leaving the opposite shores they witnessed an example of the power of Pharisaism to befog the heart and prevent the acceptance of the Lord whom they loved and revered as the Messiah of Israel. Looking still further back, they might have recollected that terrible exhibition of the power of Herod when John, the prophet and forerunner, was murdered in circumstances of horrible barbarity. These forces of religious hypocrisy and of civil government at work in these typical instances were proved to be alike antagonistic to the progress of the truth, and the Lord had turned away in avoidance of both. For the future guidance of His followers, the Lord now warned them against these sources of contamination and corruption. The time had come when the children of the kingdom must break away from those who professed to be teachers of the law and who sat in Moses' seat.

The Pharisees were unreal pietists, and, the Herodians were political time-servers. It behoved the disciples in the exercise of such power and authority as the Lord had given them as His apostles to take heed lest empty-formalism and the fear of or undue subservience to worldly power should enter and vitiate the kingdom of God. Love of self and love of the world would, if allowed, work insidiously, like leaven, to the corruption of the followers of Christ, as it had already done in the Jewish nation. The warning of the Lord was uttered with a full knowledge of the coming menace, and, we find, historically, that evil afterwards crept into the churches of Galatia and Corinth, and is alluded to under this figure of leaven (Gal. 5:9; 1 Cor. 5:7-8).