Matthew 14:1

1. At that time In narrating the death of John the Baptist, Matthew follows a peculiar order of facts. He gives us: 1. A conversation of Herod with his servants, in which the king expresses the opinion that Jesus was John the Baptist risen from the dead, (Matthew 14:1-2.) 2. To explain this expression of the king’s, he goes back in time, and narrates how John was slain by Herod, (Matthew 14:3-12.) 3. He last informs us how Jesus retired on receiving intelligence of the Baptist’s death, (Matthew 14:13.) The real order of the facts in time was, first, The Baptist’s death; second, The retirement of Jesus; and third, The conversation of Herod. The phrase, at that time, must therefore have an indefinite extension, and mean at that general period of our Lord’s ministry.

Herod This was Herod Antipas. This prince succeeded Herod, surnamed the Great, as ruler of Galilee, in the infancy of our Saviour, and is the only Herod so called afterward in the Gospels. He was the son of Herod the Great, (of whom we have given some account in Matthew 2:1,) by Malthace. When Herod the Great died, he appointed by will Archelaus, his son by the same Malthace, king of Judea, and this Antipas tetrarch of Galilee; but this will must receive the sanction of the supreme authority, Augustus, emperor of Rome. Both brothers appeared before the emperor, who so changed the arrangement as to give to Archelaus the province of Judea, with the title, not of king, but of ethnarch, (or nation-ruler;) to Herod Philip, a son by Cleopatra of Jerusalem, Batana, Trachonitis, and Auranitis, provinces lying east of the Sea of Galilee; and to this Herod Antipas, Galilee and Perea. (See note on Matthew 2:22.) After the banishment of Archelaus by the emperor, Judea had no more a native king or prince. Shiloh had come, and the sceptre departed. It was placed under the general Roman prefecture of Syria, and was ruled by a series of special Roman governors, residing at Cesarea. Such was the government during the most of Jesus’s life and all of his ministry. The successive governors were Coponius, Ambivius, Annius Rufus, Valerius Gratus, and Pontius Pilate. Herod Antipas was first married to a daughter of Aretas, king of Arabia. Forming an unlawful attachment for Herodias, the wife of his brother Herod Philip, (see note on Matthew 14:3,) he became involved in a course of guilt which ended in his ruin. Aretas commenced a war upon Herod to avenge the insult to his daughter. See note on Matthew 14:6. Herod’s armies were defeated, and ruin seemed impending. This he evaded by appealing to Rome, and obtaining from the emperor an order requiring Aretas to desist from the war.

Herodias seemed to be his evil genius. When Herod’s nephew, Agrippa, brother of Herodias, had obtained from the emperor the title of king, she prompted her unlawful husband to ask the same dignity at Rome. Agrippa anticipated the design, and when they appeared at the court he met them with an accusation of treason against the emperor Herod was therefore deposed and banished, with Herodias, to Lyons in Gaul, where he died.

Tetrarch A Greek word, signifying a ruler of a fourth part of a kingdom. Under the order of the emperor, the kingdom of Herod the Great was, upon his death, divided into three tetrarchies, and given to Herod’s sons, as already mentioned. The tetrarchs and ethnarchs were very ambitious of the title of king, and were often so styled by courtesy. Heard of the fame of Jesus Herod Antipas was near at the birth of Jesus, through his life, and at his death. He had attained manhood when the arrival of the Magi, announcing a newborn rival for the throne, created a panic at the court of Herod his father. He may have shared in the excitement, and have imagined that the rival prince was slaughtered in the massacre at Bethlehem. As ruler of Galilee he was the temporal sovereign of Jesus; and from his jealousy, suspicions, and threats as ruler, Jesus was obliged to be cautious in his own movements, and to hold the enthusiasm of his followers in check. Indeed, from about this time it may be remarked that our Saviour’s influence is more spreading, yet more secret. The ruling powers of Judea have decided against him because he is no conquering Messiah. The ruler of Galilee is suspicious lest he prove a warlike opponent. Our Lord’s greatest miracles, the feeding of the multitudes, are in the dominions of Herod Philip.