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Herod the Great was the royal king of Judea the Bible. He was shrewd, clever, far-sighted, but also cruel, paranoid, and barbaric. He is also an important antagonist in the Gospel of Matthew.
Biography[]
King Herod was a ruthless man. He murdered his royal wife, the princess Mariamme, and the two handsome sons he had with her, strangling them with a silken cord. Nevertheless, he also kept 1st century Israel out of trouble with the Romans, something very few people could have done, and built cities, palaces and fortress whose ruins still impress. Of course, this does not excuse the atrocities he'd committed; once, he built a temple just to get the Jews to like him (in vain.)
According to the Gospel of Matthew, Herod sent the Magi to seek out the Messiah so he may worship him, when in reality, he had sought to kill the baby to secure his power. When the Magi where informed of Herod's plans by an angel, they refused to go back to him. The angel informed Jesus' parents, Mary and Joseph, who then fled to Egypt. While there no other evidence for this event, but it would have been quite in character for Herod to do something like this. He saw plots against him everywhere, and given the number of people he put to death, there were probably a fair few plots for him to fear. Certainly, he was hated by a great many people.
His greatest achievement - apart from switching sides at the right moment from Mark Antony to Augustus - was the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. This mammoth task began in 19BC and took many decades to complete - Jesus, Mary and Joseph saw a work in progress when they visited the Temple, and it is even possible that Joseph may have worked on this or one of Herod's other mammoth building projects.
As Herod lay dying in terrible agony, he ordered that as soon his soldiers were to execute several hundred popular officials, so that there would be a public lamentation throughout the city at the moment of his death. Fortunately, his sister countermanded the order - but the incident gives some idea of just how his crazed mind worked. One of his sons, Herod Antipas, inherited his throne upon his death.
Herod is mentioned by name in the grim Christmas classic song "The Coventry Carol", perhaps the only such song to deal with this dark part of the story.
In Other Media[]
- Main article: Herod (The Greatest Story Ever Told)
- Main article: King Herod
