CRITICAL NOTES
Matthew 14:1. At that time.—Season (R.V.). In our idiom we should bring out the idea by giving a somewhat different turn to the expression, viz., about that time (Morison). Herod.—Antipas, son of Herod the Great by Malthace. Under his father’s will he succeeded to the government of Galilee and Peræa, with the title of tetrarch, as ruler of a fourth part of the Roman province of Syria (Plumptre).
Matthew 14:2. He is risen from the dead.—The policy of the tetrarch connected him with the Sadducean priestly party rather than with the more popular and rigid Pharisees, and a comparison of Matthew 16:6, with Mark 8:15, at least suggests the identity of the “leaven of Herod” with that of the Sadducees. The superstitious terror of a conscience stained with guilt is stronger than his scepticism as a Sadducee (Plumptre). Therefore, etc.—(See R.V.). In consequence of having risen from the dead he is thought to be possessed of larger powers (Carr).
Matthew 14:3. In prison.—At Machærus, in Peræa, on the eastern side of the Dead Sea, near the southern frontier of the tetrarchy. Here Antipas had a palace and a prison under one roof, as was common in the East (cf. Nehemiah 3:25). It was the ordinary arrangement in feudal castles. At Machærus, now M’khaur, remains of buildings are still visible. These are probably the rains of the Baptist’s prison. Herod was living in this border fortress in order to prosecute the war with his offended father-in-law, Aretas. He was completely vanquished—a disaster popularly ascribed to his treatment of John the Baptist (Carr). Herodias.—Daughter of Aristobulus, son of Herod the Great.
Matthew 14:4. It is not lawful.—Josephus adds that besides this motive for imprisoning John, Herod was also afraid lest John should excite a popular tumult (Ant., XVIII. Matthew 14:2). But this apprehension must have originated in the Baptist’s denunciations of his adultery (Lange). Her first marriage was with her full uncle, and her second, if marriage it can be called, when her husband and Herod’s wife were both living, was with her step-uncle, and thus triply unlawful (Maclaren).
Matthew 14:6. The daughter of Herodias.—Salome. Danced.—The kind of dancing is obviously that which disgraces the East to the present day. Nothing but shamelessness or inveterate malice, or both combined, could have driven a princess of royal blood to practise such a profession before the assembled magnates and the Roman officers of the court of Herod (Reynolds).
Matthew 14:8. Being before instructed.—Better, being prompted or instigated. The word does not imply that the girl had been instructed before she danced what to ask for, and St. Mark distinctly states (Mark 6:24) that she went out from the banquet hall to ask her mother what use she was to make of the tetrarch’s promise. The mother’s absence shows that the supper was one for men only, and that it was among them, flushed as they were with wine, that the daughter had appeared in reckless disregard of all maiden modesty (Plumptre). A charger.—A wooden platter or trencher.
Matthew 14:9. The king.—The tetrarch is freely called king, inasmuch as he was a sovereign within his territory (Morison). Oath’s sake.—The sake of his oaths (R.V.). It would appear that Herod had repeated his oath; perhaps, in the exuberance of his enthusiasm, he had repeated it (ibid.).
Matthew 14:11. His head was brought.—If Herod had been at Tiberias, his usual residence, the messengers would have required two days to execute their commission. Following the opinion of Maldonatus, Grotius, and others, Meyer holds that the feast had taken place in Machærus itself. According to Hug and Wieseler, it was celebrated at Julias or Livias, another place of residence of Antipas, situate not far from Machærus, in the mountains on the eastern side of the Dead Sea. This view seems to us to have most in its favour (Lange). If the festivity was held in the palace at Tiberias, then, not improbably, John had been removed to that place, as Herod might wish to have him under his own eye (Morison).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Matthew 14:1-12
The approach of danger.—This passage is like an episode. The name of the Saviour is mentioned only at its beginning and end. All the rest of the story is an account of the way in which Herod, the tetrarch, was led to put John the Baptist to death; of what there was, on the one hand, to deter him from committing so great a crime; and what there was, on the other, to bring it about. The consideration of these points will probably show us why we have them related, viz. because of the light they throw on the position of the Saviour at this particular time.
I. What there was to deter.—There was, first, the general opinion of the “multitude” of that day respecting the Baptist. They all “counted him a prophet” indeed (Matthew 14:5). It was a serious thing to lay hands on any one who was even believed to stand in such a highly exceptional place. Prophets had not been at all plentiful for many years now in the land. To touch this “prophet,” therefore, now at last vouchsafed, was a very serious thing, if there was any degree of truth in the common belief. Even, indeed, if there were none at all in it, such a step was one which involved no slight measure of risk. The family of the Herods had found it well worth while, from a worldly point of view, to profess respect for the religious opinions, and even prejudices, of the Jews; witness the temple itself in the condition of glory to which Herod the Great had brought it in direct pursuance of a policy of that kind. To kill John the Baptist, therefore, in the circumstances named, would be to reverse that policy in a most dangerous and ostentatious degree. It would be to outrage the belief of the “multitudes” instead of respecting it, and that in a most scandalous way. Well, therefore, might one whose family position had not always been independent of popular feeling (cf. the probable reference of Luke 19:14), hesitate on this account before determining to put John the Baptist to death. Also, next, there was much in Herod’s own opinion of that eminent servant of God to make him hesitate before doing so. Evidently he had some idea himself that John was truly a prophet. Elsewhere, indeed, (Mark 6:20) we are told expressly that he knew “that he was a righteous man and a holy, and kept him safe.” As also that “when he heard him, he did many things (so some ancient authorities), and heard him gladly.” Even here, also, where nothing is said expressly to quite the same effect, there are several indications, hardly less strong, of the same impression within him. It is clear, e.g. that he thought John the Baptist a kind of man in connection with whom the performance of miracles to almost any extent—not excluding even the greatest of all, that of being raised again from the dead—might not unreasonably be expected (Matthew 14:2). Most awful, therefore, even to his mind, must have been the actual step of ordering such a man’s death—the death of one who might be expected, afterwards, to be brought back again from the dead! Be his words what they might be in other respects (Matthew 14:4), it was no light thing to put an end to them by taking his life!
II. What brought it about.—Herod’s own love of sensual indulgence was the first thing to do this. Already the strength of this evil influence had leaped over several hindrances in its way. Already it had led him to no small measure of crime. He had put away one who belonged to him of right; he had taken one who belonged to another, and that other his “brother”; he had done this notwithstanding the plain remonstrances of a man whom he looked upon (see above) as a prophet (Matthew 14:4); and lastly, because that man had still continued to disapprove of his conduct, he had taken him away from his work and confined him in prison, and even thought of his death (Matthew 14:5). In this way, therefore, he had placed himself on the incline which sloped down to that murder; and had begun that in his heart which, if it went on, would end in that crime (cf. James 1:15; 1 John 3:15). The bitter enmity of Herod’s partner in evil was the next thing which helped to bring this crying consummation about. This is one of the evils—the great evils—of partnership in trangression. It seldom happens that both partners are equally advanced in obduracy and perverseness. It happens still more seldom that the less advanced of the two holds the other one back. How should this be indeed when they are both on that “slope” of which we have spoken? Does not that slope itself, rather, give all its advantage to that which is already, so to speak, the naturally heavier will of the two? And must it not be, therefore, that, in the end, they both come to the foot, whatever reluctance on the part of one of them there may be for a time? It was so in this case, because of yet another cause of which we are told. Shall we say there came that which tripped up Herod as he was trying to steady himself on that “slope”? If we did, it would not be an inapt description of what finally led to his fall. The “daughter of Herodias” came in and so “danced” as to make “the king” dance in thought, as it were, and “promise with an oath to give her whatsoever she should ask.” She, “put forward” by her mother—apparently beforehand—asked for the head of the Baptist. He, sorely “grieved,” and still most unwilling to do so, felt constrained to give way. He feared his “oath”; he feared them that “sat” by; he feared, in short, to do right; and so became distinguished ever afterwards as the “Herod” who put John the Baptist to death.
This was the man who had now heard of the miracles of Jesus. What was to be expected, that being the case? That the two would soon be brought into contact, if things went on as before. That this would lead necessarily, Herod being such as he was, to their being brought into conflict. And that this, finally, would expose the Saviour to a danger not known by Him previously, even to that of which, probably some time after, we read in Luke 13:31. From this time, therefore, we must look on the Saviour as not so free as He had been; and as moving about with yet another thundercloud over His head. Here He is in the country and under the notice of the murderer of the Baptist—of another Ahab, as it were, sitting to rule with another Jezebel by his side. The position adds to the pathos as well as to the solemnity of all that He bore for our sakes.
HOMILIES ON THE VERSES
Matthew 14:1-12. The martyrdom of John.—It takes a long time for news of Christ to reach the ears of Herod. Peasants hear of Him before princes whose thick palace walls and crowds of courtiers shut out truth. Note the alarm of the conscience-stricken king. In his terror he makes confidants of his slaves, overleaping the barriers of position in his need of some ears to pour his fears into. He was right in believing that he had not finished with John, and in expecting to meet him again with mightier power to accuse and condemn. “If ’twere done when ’tis done,” says Macbeth; but it is not done. There is a resurrection of deeds as well as of bodies. We may best gather up the lessons of the narrative by taking the actors in the tragedy.
I. We have in Herod the depths of evil possible to a weak character. The singular double which he, Herodias, and John present to Ahab, Jezebel, and Elijah, has often been noticed. In both cases a weak king is drawn opposite ways by the stronger-willed temptress at his side, and by the stern ascetic from the desert. How John had found his way into “kings’ houses” we do not know; but, as he carried thither his undaunted boldness of plain-spoken preaching of morality and repentance, it was inevitable that he should find his way from the palace to the dungeon.
1. In this wicked world weak men will always be wicked men; for it is less trouble to consent than to resist, and there are more siren voices to whisper “Come” than prophets to thunder “It is not lawful.” Strength of will is needful for all noble life.
2. We may learn from this man, also, how far we may go on the road of obedience to God’s will, and yet leave it at last. What became of all his eager listening, of his partial obedience (Mark 6:20), of his care to keep John safe from Herodias’ malice? All vanished like early dew. What became of his conscience-stricken alarms on hearing of Christ? Did they lead to any deep convictions? They faded away and left him harder than before. Convictions not followed out ossify the heart. If he had sent for Christ, and told Him his fears all might have been well.
3. He shows us, too, the intimate connection of all sins. The common root of every sin is selfishness, and the shapes which it takes are protean and interchangeable. Sensual crimes and cruelty are closely akin. Sins are gregarious, and a solitary sin is more seldom seen than a single swallow.
4. Herod is an illustration, too, of a conscience fantastically sensitive, while it is dead to real crimes. He has no twinges for his sin with Herodias, and no effective ones at killing John, but he thinks it would be wrong to break his oath. The two things often go together; and many a brigand in Calabria, who would cut a throat without hesitation, would not miss mass or rob without a little image of the Virgin in his hat.
II. The next actors in the tragedy are 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. The criminality of the daughter largely depends upon her age, of which we have no knowledge. Probably she was old enough to be her mother’s fellow-conspirator, rather than her tool, and had learned only too well her lessons of impurity and cruelty. She inherited and was taught evil; that was her misfortune. She made it her own; that was her crime.
III. There is something dramatically appropriate in the silent death of the lonely forerunner.—The faint noise of revelry may have reached his ears, as he brooded there, and wondered if the coming King would never come for his enlargement. The King has come and set His servant free, sending him to prepare His way before Him, in the dim regions beyond. A world where Herod sits in the festal chamber, and John lies headless in the dungeon, needs some one to set it right.
IV. It needed some courage for John’s disciples to come to that gloomy, blood-stained fortress, and bear away the headless trunk which scornful cruelty had flung out to rot unburied. When reverent love and sorrow had done their task what was the little flock without a shepherd to do? They show by their action that their master had profited from his last message to Jesus. At once they turn to Him, and, no doubt, the bulk of them were absorbed in the body of His followers. The best thing any of us can do is to “go and tell Jesus” our loneliness, and let it bind us more closely to him.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Matthew 14:1-2. Miseries of a guilty conscience.—I. Conscience is no respecter of persons.
II. A guilty conscience possesses a retentive memory.
III. Is exposed not only to real, but to imaginary woes.
IV. Will torment a man in spite of all his intellectual theories and all the articles of his religious creed.—Homilist.
Matthew 14:3-5. John the Baptist’s death.—
1. Faithful ministers will not spare to tell even kings their sins.
2. It is no new thing that kings and great men take it evil to be reproved of their sins and are ready to persecute faithful preachers.
3. The Lord can make any means serve to keep His servant’s life so long as He pleaseth, as here He maketh the fear of the people a means of John’s safety for a time.
4. Wicked men do not abstain from any sin but for worldly reasons; they do nothing for regard to God. Herod “feared the multitude.”—David Dickson.
Matthew 14:3. The influence of women on kings.—A princess of the house of Bourbon, on being asked why the reigns of queens were, in general, more prosperous than the reigns of kings, replied, “Because, under kings, women govern; under queens, men.”
Matthew 14:6-11. Herod’s sacrifice of John the Baptist.—
1. When a man hath a mind to an evil work, a time shall be found fit for the doing of it.
2. A time of carnal feasting is a time for plotting and practising against God’s servants.
3. A foolish and graceless heart is easily taken with a small delight, as Herod is marvellously pleased with a damsel’s dancing.
4. A foolish delight is able to ensnare a man for practising a wicked work, as Herod’s vain delight engageth him in a rash general promise and oath, and so he is engaged in the murder of the Lord’s servant.
5. Such as the parents are, such is the education of their children.
6. The malice of the wicked against reprovers of their sin is deadly. John Baptist’s head must pass for his reproof of incest.
7. Malicious persons will prefer the satisfaction of their malice to anything else. Herodias had rather have John’s head than half a kingdom.
8. A graceless soul may have a wrestling with his lusts ere he commit a sin, and may be sorrowful for carnal reasons to do some wicked deed, as Herod here is loth to kill John
9. A natural conscience is not able to resist a temptation, though it may restrain a man for a time, for Herod, though he be sorry, yet he yieldeth.
10. A sinner ensnared is holden by bands which he might lawfully break, as Herod here by a rash oath.
11. That which indeed is a man’s shame will appear unto a foolish sinner to be his credit; and when credit appears, it will more prevail with the wicked than either conscience or carnal fear. Herod here for their sakes that sat with him at meat doth yield that John shall lose his head.
12. God’s dearest servants may be taken away by a light occasion, after that the Lord hath ended His work by them, as here John dieth at the desire of a wanton lass.
13. The bodies of the saints may be abused after death at the pleasure of the persecutors, as John’s head here is made a spectacle to his foes.—David Dickson.
Matthew 14:6. Herod’s ballroom.—
1. Before the ball.—The news of Christ’s miracles had reached Herod. He was startled. Who is this Jesus? John risen from the dead? Why these fears? John had reproved Herod, and Herod imprisoned John for eighteen months. The guilt of an unlawful marriage was on his conscience. He rushes into gaiety to drown his troubles. The pleasures of the feast and the ballroom “minister to a mind diseased.” Men fly to the ball, the theatre, the card-table, the tavern, not simply for pleasure’s sake, and to “taste life’s glad moments,” but to drown care, to smother conscience, to laugh away the impressions of the last sermon, to soothe an uneasy mind, to relieve the burden, or to pluck out the sting of conscious guilt! O slaughter-houses of souls! O shambles, reeking with blood!
II. During the ball.—A gay scene. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life are there. All that can minister to these are there. Herod is there, stupefying conscience. The fair daughter is there, in all the splendour of gay wantonness. The vile mother is there, lascivious and revengeful. Courtiers are there in pomp and glitter. Music and mirth are there. The dance and the song. But some are absent: John is not there; his disciples are not there. Jesus is not there, nor His disciples. They were present at the marriage festival at Cana; but this ball-room is not for them. It is not the place for a follower, either of Jesus or of John. The beauty of “this world” is one thing, and the beauty of the “world to come” another. These scenes of vanity are instructive; they present the world in its most fascinating aspects.… These balls are the most seductive specimens of pure worldliness that can be found. Surely the god of this world knows how to enchant both eye and ear. Here the natural man is at home. It is a place where God is not; where the cross is not; where such things as sin and holiness must not be named. It is a ball where the knee is not bent except in the waltz; where music in the praise of Jesus is not heard; where the book of God and the name of God would be out of place; where you might speak of Jupiter, Venus, Apollo, but not of Jesus.… It was during that ball that the murder of John was plotted and consummated (“Lust hard by hate,” Milton); that a drunken, lustful king, urged on by two women, perpetrated that foul deed.… Such are the masquerades of time.… Such was the coarse worldliness of old days; but is the refined worldliness of modern times less fatal to the soul?… “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?”
III. After the ball.—Of the chief actors in this ball-room murder nothing more is said. They pass to the judgment seat. They have sent John before them to receive his reward.… His lips are silenced, and his disciples bury the body; then they go and tell Jesus. Jesus hears of the murder and is silent!… This is the day of endurance and patient suffering. The day of recompense is coming.—H. Bonar, D.D.
Murderous though beautiful.—Beautiful, innocent-looking creatures are sometimes deadly in their influence The Lucilia hominivorax is rather more than the third of an inch in length; the head is large, downy, and of a golden yellow. The thorax is dark blue and very brilliant, with gay reflections of purple. The wings are transparent, yet prettily tinged; their margins as well as the feet are black. This innocent-looking insect is very beautiful, yet it is an assassin. M. Coquerel has informed us that it sometimes occasions the death of those wretched convicts who have been transported to the distant penitentiary of Cayenne. When this fly gets into the mouth or nostrils it lays its eggs there, and when they are changed into larvæ, the death of the victim generally follows. The larvæ are lodged in the interior of the nasal orifices and the frontal sinuses, and their mouths are armed with two very sharp mandibles. They have been known to reach the ball of the eye, and to gangrene the eyelids. They enter the mouth, corrode and devour the gums and the entrance of the throat, so as to transform those parts into a mass of putrid flesh, a heap of corruption. What an emblem are these of the pleasures which, in an unsuspicious form, are apt to fasten themselves upon man—beautiful in appearance, yet ruinous in result!—Scientific Illustrations and Symbols.
Remarkable days of high festival are accompanied with great danger of falling into sin.—Bengel.
Dancing.—A sedate and devout Christian leaves dancing to goats, calves, and children, and orders his steps according to the word of God, and not the directions of the dancing-master.—Hedinger.
Matthew 14:9. Herod an example of an alleged necessity of sinning.—There is a world of sad meaning in the little word that qualifies the intimation of Herod’s grief. “The king was exceeding sorry; yet—” (Mark 6:26). “He was sorry; nevertheless——.” The full half of all the sins of men on earth are committed in this very way, with a feeling of sorrow and an excuse of necessity. But yet even this most trimming waverer—“but yet”—may demand a hearing. He has his reasons—“For his oath’s sake,” etc. And they are strong enough reasons; an oath in heaven and a pledge on earth—the entanglement of a double obligation, on which God above and man below may equally insist. Are the reasons valid? Such a question we need scarcely ask or answer. But are they alleged honestly, and in good faith? This is a more interesting inquiry, and in dealing with, it we must distinguish between excuses of weakness and apologies for wilfulness.
I. Is it a case of weakness?—Is it in all sincerity that you pitifully urge the plea—You have gone too far to draw back? You would fain do so; but yet——. Certainly you are entitled to sympathy. It may be proper, however, to ask you, in all tenderness, two questions deeply affecting your responsibility:—
1. How came you into such a position?—You are pledged before God; there is your oath. Now, this may mean that you really have involved yourselves so deeply as to admit of a question of conscience or scruple of religion being raised when you attempt to draw back. The far more probable supposition is that what you mistake for a sacred pledging of yourselves in the sight of God, is really nothing more than your being committed in your own opinion. You have formed a resolution more or less deliberately, and it is a mortification of your self-esteem to find that you must alter your course. And then, you are pledged, not only in your own mind, but in the judgment or opinion of men. Have you learned that wickedness makes a tool of wickedness? That tutors in sin invariably become tyrants? Truly you are to be pitied. But the question must be pressed upon you: How came you into a position so embarassing?
(1) That you may apprehend and feel your guilt. There is a risk of your being fondled in the cradle of a spurious sentimental sympathy, when it would be far better for you to be startled, were it even as by the alarum of judgment and the trump of doom.
(2) That you may not despair of recovery. The listless impression of utter helplessness that creeps into the soul when folly or excess has contrived to cast its lethargic spell over you, is like the stupor that steals upon the senses of the benumbed traveller as, weary and wayworn, amid the northern ice, he yields to the seduction of an insidious slumber. It is real kindness to break, however painfully, that sleep of death.
2. What really hinders your escape from your present embarrassment?—Assuming still that yours is a case of weakness rather than wilfulness, we ask you to consider the real value and force of your excuses. To what do they amount? Your vow, your oath—what is that but a feeling of false pride? The opinion or expectation of your fellow-men—what is that but a feeling of false shame? Even at the last hour, might not Herod have frankly owned a fault in himself, and fearlessly disowned the fellowship of those “who sat at meat with him”? Had he summoned up courage enough to abandon his false pride and his false shame, that night, so dark and bloody, might have been to him, ere it closed, the dawn of a bright and blessed day.
II. But the partition between weakness and wilfulness is very slight and tender.—The growth of this wilful spirit may be traced:
1. In your more deliberate justifying of yourselves.
2. In your more daring defiance of God.
We close with two brief remarks.
1. How unsatisfying, at the best, are these pleas!
2. And how unsubstantial!—R. S. Candlish, D.D.
Herod’s oath.—There are two things required in an oath:
1. That it be lawfully taken.
2. That it be lawfully observed and kept. Herod offended against both these. For:
1. He sinned against the first because he took an oath in a vain and foolish thing, without any necessity.
2. He sinned against the second, for he was not content to swear foolishly, but, which was worse, he did wickedly perform and grant what was wickedly desired.—Richard Ward.
Matthew 14:12. A solitary death; a great sorrow.—
I. Our text tells of a death.—It was a sudden and violent death. It was a solitary death. No congenial spirit was with the departing to cheer him with a thought of hope or with a breath of prayer. The life itself went out in inactivity. It might seem, man might call it, a failure. Its latest days were its least brilliant.
II. His disciples came and took up the body and buried it.—They who might not minister to the life shall minister to the death. No jealousy, no tyranny, survives death; so now the disciples are free to come and take the body.
III. Unhappy that sorrow which cannot tell itself to Jesus.—There are such sorrows. The burning fever of passion, whether in the form of baffled lust, or dissatisfied ambition, or self-defeated speculation, will not, scarcely can, go, quite as it is, to tell Jesus. And yet if it would, it would not be cast out. Little do we know, the best of us, of the largeness of that heart.—C. J. Vaughan, D.D.
John’s burial.—
1. The faithful must not be ashamed at the suffering of the saints, but testify their respect to the living and to the dead.
2. When pastors are cut off men must resort to the Chief Shepherd so much the more.—David Dickson.
Telling Jesus.—
I. They went and told.—
1. Human sorrow must speak.
2. Will speak to the tried friend.
3. Will make an effort to find him—they went.
II. They told Jesus.—
1. He waited to be told.
2. Was willing to be told.
3. Encouraged them to tell. Go and tell Jesus your doubts, fears, sins, sorrows.—J. C. Gray.