THE course of Herod’s reign is stained with blood, now of enemies, now of friends. Neither wife nor child was safe at his hands. Not only had he killed his beloved Maccabean wife, but he had also been the cause of the death of her grandfather, father, mother, and uncle. He afterward added to these crimes, the strangulation of his and her sons, Alexander and Aristobulus. Herod had sent his sons to Rome to be educated, where they remained for six years, and, when they were taken home, they would have entered upon the honors rightly their due but for the jealousy of their aunt, Salome. She, who had compassed Mariamne’s destruction, now plotted against her sons. She succeeded in poisoning the father’s mind against them, and he put over their heads his crafty son Antipater, the son of a former Idumean wife, Doris, from whom he had been divorced on his marriage with Mariamne. Breach upon breach was affected. Herod accused (B.C. 11) his sons before Augustus C. war, who managed to bring about a reconciliation between them, but he publicly named Antipater as his successor to the kingdom. “Better be Herod’s pig than Herod’s son,” is the saying attributed to Augustus.
Two years later, through the calumnies of Salome and Antipater, fresh trouble arose, and many persons were tortured in order to extort confessions from them, hurtful to the young princes. Alexander was cast into prison, and in sheer desperation confessed to plots which had never existed, and which implicated Salome and many of his father’s friends. The aged king became nearly mad with rang and fear, and slaughtered till his palace was like a shambles.
In the year B.C. 6, Herod was again filled with suspicion against his sons, and, having obtained leave from the emperor to proceed against them, he so vehemently accused them before the Council that sentence of death was passed upon them, to be executed as their father saw fit, and he caused them to be strangled.
His son, Antipater, now plotted to poison him, but he was discovered, and executed by his father’s command.
Notwithstanding these intrigues and plots, Herod carried out many great works. City upon city was built by him. Samaria, Cæsaria, Cypron, Antipatris, Phasaelis, were his handiwork, while he completely transformed Jerusalem. The Temple, gleaming with marble and gold, owed its beauty to him, and temples to heathen gods, theaters and towers arose by his hand. He showed splendid ability in war, and averted famine and pestilence, and remodeled and reduced the taxation. But his path lay over the dead bodies of such as might by some possibility―right of blood, or popular esteem―imperil his ambitions. Little wonder that his suspicious were constantly aroused, that “those who frequented the presence of the sovereign were suspected of sinister designs; those who stood aloof were self-convicted of disloyalty.” His “barbarous temper,” as Josephus calls it, halted at no act, however wicked, which might stamp out the least danger to his own person or position.
It was, probably, in the very year that he strangled his sons, and while he was racked with fear for his own safety, that Zacharias, the priest of the order of Abia, saw a heavenly visitor standing on the right hand of the incense-altar. The tidings which he brought— the promise of Messiah’s forerunner— are familiar to us all. Six months later, the same Gabriel appeared to Mary, a virgin of Nazareth, with still more glorious tidings.
“Thou shalt ... bring forth a son, and shalt call His name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David: and He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of His kingdom there shall be no end.”
A little later, a Roman decree set the whole world in motion; the tribes went up to their various cities to be enrolled, and thus were Mary and Joseph, her betrothed, brought to Bethlehem. A short time afterward, all Jerusalem was troubled by a startling report of strange visitors. Wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is He that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen His star in the East, and are come to worship Him.” From what has been said of Herod’s disposition, his alarm may be easily imagined! He “was troubled,” is the simple language of the evangelist. With craftiness, thoroughly like that which comes out in other actions of his life, he pretended that he, too, would worship this “King.” But “war was in his heart,” and, foiled by the wise men, he issued his barbarous decree for the massacre of the children. Leaving out of sight the fact that this was a blow at “the Lord’s Christ,” this act was an insignificant cruelty compared with other deeds of Herod. The most careful computation puts down the number of children slain as under twenty, for Bethlehem was but a village.
We have now bridged over the four hundred years, and are at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel. The checkered a story those four centuries contain has been briefly indicated. At times the nation and the faith were almost crushed out of being; at others a condition of prosperity was reached, such as had been rarely surpassed in the nation’s history. But every year, whether of weal or woe, brought nearer “the time” of which the prophets had spoken, and which they had strictly defined. With its coming, Messianic hopes rose; an eager “expectation” was created, and conceptions of the Messiah were formed, which, alas! were often little in accordance with the prophetic scriptures, or the true character of “the coming One.”
At last the news of His birth was sounded abroad; then His messenger went before His face to prepare His way; and, still later, His own voice was heard proclaiming, “The time is fulfilled; the kingdom of God is at hand.”
It is beyond our province to go further. The succeeding history is known to all our readers. Yet Jesus of Nazareth was not the Messiah of Jewish thought, and the Gospels which open with the record of His coming, in fulfillment of God’s promise, His birth and His presentation to Israel, contain also the solemn story of His rejection―His cross and His death. Jr.