For Herod had laid hold on John, and bound him, and put him in prison for Herodias' sake, his brother Philip's wife. For John said unto him, It is not lawful for thee to have her. And when he would have put him to death, he feared the multitude, because they counted him as a prophet. But when Herod's birthday was kept, the daughter of Herodias danced before them, and pleased Herod. Whereupon he promised with an oath to give her whatsoever she would ask. And she, being before instructed of her mother, said, Give me here John Baptist's head in a charger. And the king was sorry: nevertheless for the oath's sake, and them which sat with him at meat, he commanded it to be given her. And he sent, and beheaded John in the prison. And his head was brought in a charger,
and given to the damsel: and she brought it to her mother.
And his disciples came, and took up the body, and buried it,
and went and told Jesus. Matt 14:3-12
FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS’ SAKE
and given to the damsel: and she brought it to her mother.
And his disciples came, and took up the body, and buried it,
and went and told Jesus. Matt 14:3-12
FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS’ SAKE
In the terror arising from his stricken conscience, Herod made confidants of his slaves, overleaping the barriers of position in his need of some ears into which to pour his fears. He had not finished with John. There is a resurrection of deeds as well as of bodies. The only way to have done with a sinful deed is to confess it and make reparation.
What true nobility John displayed in summoning the king to the bar of eternal justice! He might have said, “It isn’t seemly,” or, “It isn’t politic;” but he puts it on more unassailable ground, which Herod’s conscience endorsed: “It is not lawful.”Herod was luxurious, sensual, superstitious and weak. He was easily entrapped by the beautiful fiend. To tamper with conscience is like killing the watch-dog while the burglar is breaking in.
How splendid the action of John’s disciples! Reverent love and grief made them brave the king’s hatred. In hours of lonely bereavement, the best policy is to go and tell Jesus. (F.B. Meyer)
What true nobility John displayed in summoning the king to the bar of eternal justice! He might have said, “It isn’t seemly,” or, “It isn’t politic;” but he puts it on more unassailable ground, which Herod’s conscience endorsed: “It is not lawful.”Herod was luxurious, sensual, superstitious and weak. He was easily entrapped by the beautiful fiend. To tamper with conscience is like killing the watch-dog while the burglar is breaking in.
How splendid the action of John’s disciples! Reverent love and grief made them brave the king’s hatred. In hours of lonely bereavement, the best policy is to go and tell Jesus. (F.B. Meyer)
| Mark tells us that she went to consult her mother before she made her request. That vile woman was prepared with an answer. Indeed, she had manipulated the whole affair so as to secure Herod's consent to the murder of John. (B.W. Johnson) Being before instructed by her mother - Both as to the matter and manner of her petition: She said, Give me here - Fearing if he had time to consider, he would not do it: John the Baptist's head in a charger - A large dish or bowl. (John Wesley) |  |
Herodias and her daughter.—Her portrait is drawn in a few strokes, but they are enough. In strength of will and unscrupulous carelessness of human life she is the sister of Jezebel, and curiously like Shakespeare’s awful creation, Lady Macbeth; but she adds a strain of sensuous passion to their vices, which heightens the horror. Many a shameless woman would have shrunk from sullying a daughter’s childhood by sending her to play the part of a shameless dancing-girl before a crew of half-tipsy revellers, and from teaching her young lips to ask for murder. But Herodias sticks at nothing, and is as insensible to the duty of a mother as to that of a wife. We have a hideous picture of corrupted womanhood.
 | Herodias, the Jezebel to this Ahab, was his brother’s wife, and niece to both her husband and Herod. Elijah was not far off; John’s daring outspokenness, of course, made the indignant woman his implacable enemy. (Alexandar MacLaren) |
| The history and geneology of this dancing woman-Salome: She was the grandaughter of Herod the Great. Also the niece of both brother's Herod and Philip. This Philip, however, was not the tetrarch of that name mentioned in Luk_3:1 (see on Luk_3:1), but one whose distinctive name was “Herod Philip,” another son of Herod the Great - who was disinherited by his father. Herod Antipas’ own wife was the daughter of Aretas, king of Arabia; but he prevailed on Herodias, his half-brother Philip’s wife, to forsake her husband and live with him, on condition, says Josephus [Antiquities, 18.5, 1], that he should put away his own wife. |  |
John's Death-From God's Point of View
At the time of John’s death he had finished his work. His work was not to preach the Gospel, but to point to, and prepare the way for, Him who did preach it; and if Christ was now come, what more need of John? You may say, perhaps, that it was but a poor reward for John the Baptist, that after he had laboured earnestly as the messenger of Christ, he should be shut up in prison, and allowed to drag on a weary existence there, and at last lose his life to please Herodias. This is perfectly true, if you look at the matter from a merely human point of view. But the question is, not whether a man thinks it time to leave this world, but whether he has done God’s work in it. The lesson He would teach us is, that we should give to Him the prime of our faculties, and consecrate to His service our health and strength, and then leave it to Him, without a murmur or a sigh, to determine, as seems best to Him, how we leave this world when our work is done.
John was the forerunner of Christ; so far, we cannot be exactly like him. But in what spirit did he go before Christ? This is really the question of questions. The spirit in which he went before Christ was that of simple obedience and bold determination to do God’s will. He has taught us that we are to do our duty simply, boldly, and sincerely, as in the fear of God. We are to act as believing that God’s eye is upon us; that He knows our acts, our words, our thoughts; that we are His and not our own; that we have a great work to do for Him, and a short day in which to do it, and a long night before us in which no work can be done.
(Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, 5th series, p. 248)
John was the forerunner of Christ; so far, we cannot be exactly like him. But in what spirit did he go before Christ? This is really the question of questions. The spirit in which he went before Christ was that of simple obedience and bold determination to do God’s will. He has taught us that we are to do our duty simply, boldly, and sincerely, as in the fear of God. We are to act as believing that God’s eye is upon us; that He knows our acts, our words, our thoughts; that we are His and not our own; that we have a great work to do for Him, and a short day in which to do it, and a long night before us in which no work can be done.
(Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, 5th series, p. 248)
