Herod Antipas
Herod after the Father
- Herod Antipas (20 BC–c. AD 40), tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea, called "Herod the Tetrarch" or "Herod" in the New Testament up to Acts 4:27, and described therein as ordering John the Baptist's death and Jesus. Some believe he repented and converted to Christianity.
After being named to the throne by Augustus Caesar upon the death of his father, Herod the Great, in 4 BC, and subsequent Ethnarch rule by his brother, Herod Archelaus, Antipas ruled Galilee and Perea as a client state of the Roman Empire. He was responsible for building projects at Sepphoris and Betharamphtha, and more important for the construction of his capital Tiberias on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Named in honor of his patron, the emperor Tiberius, the city later became a center of rabbinic learning.
Antipas divorced his first wife Phasaelis, the daughter of King Aretas IV of Nabatea, in favour of Herodias, who had formerly been married to his brother Herod Philip I. (Antipas was Herod the Great's son by Malthace, while Herod II was his son by Mariamne II.)
While Archelaus was deemed incompetent by Augustus and replaced with a prefect in 6 AD, Antipas would govern Galilee and Perea for forty-two years.
Antipas faced more immediate problems in his own tetrarchy after John the Baptist – in 28/29 AD according to the Gospel of Luke.
Among those baptized by John was Jesus of Nazareth, who began his own ministry in Galilee – causing Antipas, according to Matthew and Mark, to fear that the Baptizer had been raised from the dead.
Luke alone among the Gospels states that a group of Pharisees warned Jesus that Antipas was plotting his death, whereupon Jesus denounced the tetrarch as a "fox" and declared that he, Jesus, would not fall victim to such a plot because "it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem".
Antipas' fall from power was due to Caligula and to his own nephew Agrippa, brother of Herodias. When Agrippa fell into debt during the reign of Tiberius despite his connections with the imperial family, Herodias persuaded Antipas to provide for him, but the two men quarreled and Agrippa departed.
The fox
- And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to morrow, and the third [day] I shall be perfected. Luke 13:32:
That fox, Herod Antipas, had his den, his throne, but the son of man came as a servant to man and gave all to serve all and would soon be hailed as the highest son of David and the rightful heir of his throne.
Exceeding glad
Luke 23:8 "And when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceeding glad: for he was desirous to see him of a long season, because he had heard many things of him; and he hoped to have seen some miracle done by him."
Why was he exceedingly glad?
Why did he desire to see Jesus?
What were the question he asked?
The robe
- Luke 23:11 "And Herod with his men of war set him at nought, and mocked him, and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe, and sent him again to Pilate."
Why the "gorgeous robe" and why did these events endear Pilate and Herod as friends?
- Luke 23:12 "And the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together: for before they were at enmity between themselves."
What is the whole Gospel?
The word "Christ" meant anointed and therefore the Kings of Israel who were anointed. To Call Jesus the Christ was to call him Messiah and King. The Pharisees and Herod had instituted a system of Corban through the power of the priesthood and the civil law in order to exercise authority[1] of the king over the people to provide welfare, benefits, and dainties.
Such systems of legal charity were a snare and a trap according to Proverbs, David, and Paul. They would entangle the people in the elements of the world, returning them to the bondage of Egypt.
King Saul used his power as king to force the sacrifice of the people but Samuel said he was foolish for doing that and his government would fail because of it. The Pharisees with the help of Herod the Great instituted a similar system of corban that blended their Religion with the power of the State which meant their religion was no longer pure Religion.
The Doctrine of Jesus opposed such systems because they weaken the people like Babylon, Sumer, and Sodom did.[2]
- ↑ Not exercise authority
- Matthew 20:25 "But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you:..."
- Mark 10:42 "But Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. But so shall it not be among you:..."
- Luke 22:25 "And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye [shall] not [be] so:..."
- ↑ The sin the Sodom
- Genesis 18:20 "And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous;..."
- Genesis 13:13 “13 But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly.”
- Ezekiel 16:49 "Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy."
- Genesis 14:21-23 "And the king of Sodom said unto Abram, Give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself. 22 And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand unto the LORD, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, 23 That I will not [take] from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take any thing that [is] thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich:
- Deuteronomy 32:31-33 “31 For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges. 32 For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter: 33 Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.”
- Isaiah 1:9-19 “9 Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah. 10 Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. 11 To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. 12 When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? 13 Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. 14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. 15 And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. 16 Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; 17 Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. 18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. 19 If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:”
- Isaiah 3:8-9 “8 For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen: because their tongue and their doings are against the LORD, to provoke the eyes of his glory. 9 The shew of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves.”
- Jeremiah 23:14 “14 I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none doth return from his wickedness: they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.”
- Lamentations 4:5-10 “5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills. 6 For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her. 7 Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire: 8 Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick. 9 They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field. 10 The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.”
- Jude 1:7-8 “7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. 8 Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.”