Herod the Great

1. Antipater, a non-Jewish, Idumean, was advisor to Hyrcanus II.  This shrewd man was appointed governor of Judea in 47 B.C. by Julius Caesar. Antipater got a government job for his son Herod the Great, who was very ambitious.

2. Herod the Great ruled from 37 to 4 B.C. He was a friend of the Roman Mark Antony, who had the Senate of Rome declare him “king of the Jews” in 40 B.C., although he was non-Jewish. The purpose of this was to regain Judea for the Romans, which had been overrun by the Parthians in the period of civil war following the death of Julius Caesar.

→ Herod took 3 years to defeat his enemies in Judea, and by 37 B.C., he was a tyrant king who ruled Judea by force for 33 years. 

→ Herod and his descendants play an interesting role in the New Testament -- most simply are called “Herod.”

→ Herod brought peace to Palestine (which was previously unknown) as well as extending the borders of Palestine. He began a great building program (including a glamorizing of the Temple and the building of a palace in Jerusalem). 

→ Herod’s one major problem was that he was hated by the Jews because of his mixed blood line (he was half Jew) and his brutality. Herod was not kind to his enemies. He had ten wives and killed many of them and their children because he thought they were plotting against him. 

→ Ehud Netzer, “In Search of Herod’s Tomb,” Biblical Archaeology Review 37, no. 1 (January-February 2011),  37-48. 

“Herod’s distemper greatly increased upon him after a severe manner, and this by God’s judgment upon him for his sins: for a fire glowed in him slowly, which did not so much appear to the touch outwardly as it augmented his pains inwardly; (169) for it brought upon him a vehement appetite to eating, which he could not avoid to supply with one sort of food or other. His entrails were also exulcerated, and the chief violence of his pain lay on his colon; an aqueous and transparent liquor also settled itself about his feet, and a like matter afflicted him at the bottom of his belly. Nay, farther, his privy member was putrified, and produced worms; and when he sat upright he had a difficulty of breathing, which was very loathsome, on account of the stench of his breath, and the quickness of its returns; he had also convulsions in all parts of his body, which increased his strength to an insufferable degree. (170) It was said by those who pretended to divine, and who were endowed with wisdom to foretell such things, that God inflicted this punishment on the king on account of his great impiety . . .” - Josephus, Antiquities, 17.6.5