Lessons from Herod
November 19th, 2006
Sunday nights we’ve been going through Matthew and we’re on the visit of the magi to Jesus this week. Someone asked this question: if Herod believed in God, and believed the scriptures (which being an Edomite, and consulting priests when the magi inquire about the King of the Jews indicates he leaned that direction) then why did he act the way he did? Here he is slaughtering people to stay in power, the scriptures themselves say, “When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.” Its a despotic ruler that causes his subjects to be disturbed when he is disturbed.
So why did he act that way? I have a couple of ideas.
1) He just didn’t care. He was more interested in consolidating power in the here and now than in the eternal.
2) Justification. Sure what he did was wrong but it kept the Romans from wiping out the Jews.
Of course this doesn’t take into account how he expected to keep the Messiah who was sent by God from coming. I suppose after wielding power so successfully in his own service for so long you think you can make war on God Himself and win, call it the boastful pride of life. Either that or Herod thought this was yet another false messiah and wanted to keep people from getting all stirred up.