Herod the Great

His name was Herod Agrippa and he was listening to the Apostle Paul preach to him.

Now, when we hear the word or the name Herod, which is a, a name and a title, uh, we get confused because there's a lot of Herods in the Bible.

[laughs] Number one, there's the big daddy of them all, known as Herod the Great.

This is the Herod that tried to kill Jesus when he was made aware by the wise men that one had been born in Bethlehem who would be the King of the Jews.

He was so close, yet so far.

Yes, you can appear to be a believer and not be a believer.

So coming back to our story, Herod Agrippa the King, one of the Herods, is coming to town, it's a big deal, and his sister Bernice.

They arrive with all the pomp and circumstance that surrounds a visiting dignitary.

He was twenty when he became emperor, barely old enough to quarterback an NFL team, but this is where he found himself in seven BC.

Over in the Holy Land, just before the Han dynasty was about to implode, Herod the Great was in his final bloody years.

The temple in Jerusalem was under construction, and as I think I mentioned already, Jesus was just about to be born.

Emperor Ai's troubles included a maternal family who were trying to muscle in on the Wang clan, who, thanks to Empress Wang's longevity and political astuteness, had been so influential going back to earlier emperors.

The great town, enclosed by walls, enwreathed with vegetation, that ancient city of palms, few of which still remain, though they were abundant as late as the 7th century, and in Jewish amulets and marriage or divorce documents which are commonly decorated with allegorical pictures, Jericho is still represented by a group of palms.

South of the Israelitish town, and west of modern Jericho, are the remains of the Roman Jericho, which, it is interesting to remember, was presented by Antony to Cleopatra, who, characteristically, promptly sold it to Herod for a winter home.

He made of it a beautiful city, adorned with palms and gardens, and centred with the balsams for which it was long famous as an article of commerce, but which are no longer to be found in Syria, and where, in the time of Christ, the roadsides were shaded with sycamores, not the pseudo-platanus with which we are familiar, and which is not a sycamore at all, but the ficus sycomorus, the mulberry fig, which, often attaining the proportions of a handsome forestry, still yields its wholesome and refreshing fruit among the humbler surroundings of today.

The remains of a pool 564 feet long, part of an immense system of conduits still visible, which was the immediate cause of the fertility and beauty of the Roman Jericho.

It is said to indicate the whereabouts of Herod's palace.

The Jericho of crusading times was, probably, supplied with water from what is now locally known as the Aynas Sultan, the Sultan's Spring, although its more suggestive name of Elijah's Fountain is still in use among the Christian population.

Pilgrims of the 4th and 5th centuries record the tradition that it was here that the prophet healed the bitter water with salt.

When we had crossed the rushing ford and regained the plateau, we realized that our shadows were already lengthening.

Do you know women can sing a lot of praises? I'm sure a lot of women sang from the mountain.

Where is Caesar? Where is Herod? Come and see what Jesus is doing.

You guys have been scribes and Pharisees for years.

You never fed us.

And behold, a voice saying, "Salome, Salome, tell not the strange things thou hast seen until the child has come into Jerusalem." And behold, Joseph was ready to go into Judea, and there was a great commotion in Bethlehem of Judea.

For Magi came, saying, "Where is he that is born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and have come to worship him." And when Herod heard, he was much disturbed, and sent officers to the Magi.

And he sent for the priests and examined them, saying, "How is it written about the Christ? Where is he to be born?" And they said, "In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written." And he sent them away.

And he examined the Magi, saying to them, "What sign have you seen in reference to the king that has been born?" And the Magi said, "We have seen a star of great size shining above these stars, and obscuring their light, so that the stars did not appear.

And we thus knew that a king has been born to Israel, and we have come to worship him." And Herod said, "Go and seek him, and if you find him, let me know, in order that I also may go and worship him." And the Magi went out.

And behold, the star which they had seen in the east went before them, until they came to the cave, and it stood over the top of the cave.

And the Magi saw the infant with his mother Mary, and they brought forth from their bag gold and frankincense and myrrh.

After having been warned by the angel not to go into Judea, they went into their own country by another road.

Darkness was everywhere.

The rule of Herod was cruel and sinister and oppressive.

The state of religion was plush with legalism and devoid of heart.

Again, itself corrupt and riddled with deception.

The poor classes were being taxed to exhaustion.

The taxes spent on the lavish creations and palaces of Herod.

The power of Rome was growing with every single day and the entire Jewish climate was being squeezed on every level.

Tough, tough time to live as the Jewish people.

If you play any shtick, if you try to coordinate some sort of revolt against us, we have your kids here hostage.

Now, the earlier ones were Antipater and, of course, Herod.

But at this time, the Romans already...

The Jews are rebelling.

You can imagine.

Maybe you can try to visualize this.

In the temple, the beautiful, stunning temple that was refurbished recently by Herod.

In the center, all the Jews are dancing.

Difficulties began with von Schuch's first piano rehearsals.

A number of singers sought to give back their parts till Karl Böhme shamed them by answering when asked how he was progressing with the role of Herod, "I already know it by heart." A little later, the Salome, Frau Wittlich, threatened to go on strike because of the taxing part and the massive orchestra.

Soon too, she began to rail against perversity and impiety of the opera, refused to do this or that because I am a decent woman, and drove the stage manager almost frantic.

Strauss remarked that her figure was not really suited to the sixteen-year-old princess with the Isolde voice and complained that in subsequent performances, her dance and her actions with Jokanaan's head overstepped all bounds of propriety and taste.

So in verse 24, now a Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by birth, an eloquent man who arrived at Ephesus.

Now, Alexandria is the same Jewish settlement that Joseph and Mary and the baby Jesus would have fled to in Matthew chapter two, when Herod was trying to put to death all of the children, all of the boys who were two years old and younger, trying to wipe out this king of the Jews he had been hearing about.

He was unsuccessful at killing Jesus.

But Because the Lord had sent Joseph and Mary along with Jesus into Egypt is what is said there.