The Holy Innocents are few in comparison to
the genocide and abortion of our day. But even if there had been only
one, we recognize the greatest treasure God put on the earth—a human
person.
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Herod “the Great” ruled as king of the Jews under Roman authority for
thirty-three years, from 37–4 BC.
From the start, Herod proved to be an extraordinary political
survivor. When civil war broke out in Rome between Mark Antony and
Octavian, Herod first sided with Antony and his ally Cleopatra VII,
queen of Egypt.
Then, when Octavian defeated Antony and Cleopatra at Actium in 31 BC,
Herod immediately switched sides, convincing Octavian of his loyalty.
Following his victory, Octavian returned to Rome, where the Roman
senate made him imperator, or supreme military leader, and gave him the
honorary title “Augustus” (“exalted one”).
Historians mark this event as the end of the Roman Republic and the
beginning of the Roman Empire, the transfer from rule by the senate to
rule by a supreme emperor.
Under the patronage of Octavian—now Caesar Augustus—Herod’s position
as king of the Jews was secure. For his Roman soldier part, Herod would
prove to be a loyal subject to his Roman overlords, maintaining order in
Israel and protecting the western flank of the Roman Empire.
What Herod Was Like
Herod was a strange mix of a clever and efficient ruler and a cruel tyrant.
On the one hand, he was distrustful, jealous, and brutal, ruthlessly
crushing any potential opposition. The Jews never accepted him as their
legitimate king, and this infuriated him.
He constantly feared conspiracy. He executed his wife when he
suspected she was plotting against him. Three of his sons, another wife,
and his mother-in-law met the same fate when they too were suspected of
conspiracy.
Herod, trying to be a legitimate Jew, would not eat pork, but he
freely murdered his sons! Matthew’s account of Herod’s slaughter of the
infants in Bethlehem fits well with what we know of the king’s ambition,
paranoia, and cruelty.
When
Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious,
and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity
who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had
learned from the Magi. 17 Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
18 “A voice is heard in Ramah,
weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.”
As a final act of vengeance against his contemptuous subjects, he
rounded up leading Jews and commanded that at his death they should be
executed. His reasoning was that if there was no mourning for his death,
at least there would be mourning at his death! (At Herod’s death, the
order was overruled and the prisoners were released.)
