Who Were All Those Herods?

The New Testament is well provisioned with the name Herod. This family was an almost dysfunctional set of rulers over Judea and other nearby regions during biblical times. The area was in constant turmoil as varying rulers contested for the kingship, and the leading Jewish Council, the Sanhedrin, was in perpetual contests about their leadership bouncing back and forth from the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the two largest sects in Judaism. The region was in tumult most of the time.

There were many Herod family members in the Roman Empire, and five of them rose to be king or tetrarch of Judea or its subdivisions. Early historians such Josephus or Eusebius provided lots of information—as does the Bible itself. Here are quick summaries of each one.

Herod the Great is the Herod who began the cycle of Herods. When Jesus was born in roughly 6 B.C – 4 B.C. (If there is an unchallenged date in these matters, I have not found it.), Caesar Augustus ordered the world to be taxed, the tetrarch, Quirinius, partially carried out. A short time later, Augustus appointed Herod the Great as King of Judea. He reigned with an iron rode until about 4 B.C., making him the Herod who met the wise men searching for Jesus. It seems Joseph and Mary had returned to Nazareth when Herod’s soldiers killed the children in Bethlehem. The couple had fled to Egypt with the child and would remain there until after the reign of Herod the Great.

Herod Archelaus was the son of Herod the Great, and became King of Judea, Samaria, and Perea. He was as ruthless as his father, but Mary, Joseph, and Jesus moved back to Nazareth, a very small, overlooked city.

Herod Antipas was another son of Herod the Great. Caesar did not want to appoint him as king, but favored two of his brothers. Political pressure forced him to choose Antipas, his third choice. He became a Tetrarch (“one-fourth ruler”) over Galilee and Perea, and was referred to as “that fox” by Jesus. He claimed Herodias, the wife of Archelaus, as his wife. Salome was her daughter, the one who danced for Antipas. When he promised her any reward she wanted, her mother told her to ask for the head of John the Baptist on a platter. According to historians, that act was coupled with the death of Jesus to cause so much unrest among the people that Herod Agrippa I was appointed to the throne, arrested Antipas, and banished him to Gaul—modern-day France.

Herod Agrippa I was a grandson of Herod the Great. He brought severe persecution on Christians in Judea. He had the apostle James executed, and arrested Peter. Peter, on the night before his appearance before Agrippa when he would probably be executed, was miraculously freed from prison when his shackles fell off and the prison doors opened. Agrippa’s death occurred when he donned a shiny suit of silver to be proclaimed as a god to a gathering of many subjects, but was instantly struck down by God and died (Acts 12:23).

Herod Agrippa II was the last of the rulers from the Herod family. He also persecuted Christians. One was the apostle Paul who had been arrested for promoting an unofficial religion. It was this arrest, coupled by Paul’s Roman citizenship, that required Agrippa to send him under guard for judgment by Caesar, a right that all Roman citizens. Paul escaped the Jewish rulers, but began the writing of his “prison letters” that eventually penetrated the complete Roman Empire.

In one way or another sponsored by Satan himself, most governments deteriorate to the level of persecuting Christians. That movement is kept alive today by Herods under different names.