Acts 12:1 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Herod the King— The Syriac version reads, Herod the king, surnamed Agrippa: Josephus styles him Agrippa; which probably was his Roman, as Herod was his Syrian name. He was the grandson of Herod the Great, by his son Aristobulus; nephew to Herod Antipas, who beheaded John the Baptist; brother to Herodias, whom that incestuous tetrarch married; and father to that Agrippa, before whom St. Paul made his defence, ch. Acts 25:13. Caius Caligula, with whom he had an early friendship, when he became emperor, released this Agrippa from the confinement under which Tiberius had on that very account kept him, and crowned him king of the tetrarchy of his uncle Philip; to which he afterwards added the territories of Antipas, whom he banished to Lyons in Gaul: in this authority Claudius confirmed him, and made him king of Judea, adding to his former dominions those of Lysanias. This person desired to ingratiate himself with the Jews by every method; and finding that the Christians were under the popular odium, he stretched forth his hands to harass and molest them; he did not reflect upon the injustice of persecuting the Christians, though he and his countrymen had taken it so ill that the heathens, and particularly Caligula, had persecuted the Jews; as if it had been persecution only to molest the Jews for their religion, but had lost its nature, and ceased to be persecution, when practised by the Jews upon the Christians. See on ch. Acts 9:31