2. Servants. The inmates of his palace, or his courtiers. This is John. Luke states that he was perplexed to know who Jesus was. In saying that this was the one whom he had beheaded, the mighty workings of a guilty conscience are laid open; the bloody image of his murdered victim rose to his mind's eye, and haunted the scenes of his splendor, and led him, as soon as this distinguished character appeared, to identify him with John. A striking testimony to the force of conscience! Herod, in the midst of his power and magnificence, could not escape the pangs of remorse and ghastly fears, for having unjustly put to death a good man and bold censor. The arrow of self-condemnation pierces him through the purple of royalty. He is risen from the dead. It has been conjectured that Herod belonged to the sect of Sadducees, (compare Matt. xvi. 6; Mark viii. 15,) who disbelieved in the resurrection of the dead, and that his convictions of guilt overcame his speculative belief. The most wicked are often the most superstitious. Mighty works do show forth themselves, &c. i. e. “mighty powers operate by him; " which it was supposed would be the case with the prophet who was to precede the Messiah. The consciencesmitten Herod may have supposed that this power was to vindicate John's innocence and avenge his death; that the same energy that raised him from the dead continued to operate in him and enable him to do mighty works after his resurrection.

3-5. See Mark vi. 17-20; Luke iii. 19, 20.

3. Herod had laid hold, &c. Matthew here makes a digression, to relate what had happened some time before, by way of explaining what Herod had said concerning John in verse 2. —Put him in prison. This was a gross act of injustice and tyranny, the consummation, as it would appear from Luke iii. 19, 20, of other indignities. John was imprisoned, as we learn from Josephus, in the fortress of Macharus, situated on the river Jordan north of the Dead Sea. Herodias' sake. She was the grand-daughter of Herod the Great, and the daughter of Aristobulus. Her character was stained with licentiousness and cruelty. - Brother Philip's wife. Antipas and Philip were half-brothers, being sons of Herod the Great by different mothers. Herodias had eloped from her husband, Philip, who is supposed to have been a private man, and not the tetrarch of Iturea, by whom she had one daughter, Salome, and now lived with Herod Antipas, who had repudiated his wife, the daughter of Aretas, king of Arabia. Incensed by this outrage, Aretas made war upon Antipas, and defeated him in battle with great loss. The soldiers on their way to this war are supposed to have been the ones addressed by John the Baptist, Luke iii. 14. As Herod had rendered himself in some measure unpopular by this needless war, he would the more fear John's influence over the people, and shrink from subjecting himself to the odium of putting so

great and good a man to death.-It may be observed here that one bad act is usually a prelude to another. Adultery led to the imprisonment and death of John. The Rubicon of virtue once crossed, there is no limit to ambition and wickedness.

4. John said. Kept saying, according to Carpenter, for such is the force of the imperfect tense. Not lawful for thee to have her. According to the law of Moses, a man was to marry his brother's widow if he died childless, in order to perpetuate the line. But in the present instance the parties were guilty of adultery and incest, for Herod had causelessly abandoned his own, and taken another man's wife, which was adultery; and he had moreover taken a near relative, without the existence of those circumstances, viz., the death of his brother, and that without children, which could alone prevent their being guilty of incest. Thus there was a double transgression of the laws of God. Josephus confirms in his history the account here given, and thus incidentally, and all the more powerfully, substantiates the truth of the Gospels. Herod had seduced the wife of his brother while on a visit to him; a horrible breach of the rites of hospitality.

5. When he would have, i. e. when he wished. Mark says, that" Herodias had a quarrel against him, and I would have killed him, but she could not." He feared the multitude, &c. The Pharisees, Matt. xxi. 26, were prevented by the same fear of the people from saying that the baptism of John was not from

heaven, but of men. Mark states the reason to have been, that “Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just man and an holy." The two reasons are compatible with each other, and they disclose the independence of the historians. The evil nature of Herod shrank by fear from the bold and honest reformer. His dread was the tribute that vice

pays to virtue. His fear of the people was a different and altogether lower sentiment; an apprehension lest, if John was put to death, a rebellion would be excited amongst his subjects.

6 12. See Mark vi. 21 - 29.

6. Herod's birth-day. It was customary for kings and princes to celebrate their birth-days with great magnificence, as we learn both from sacred and profane history. Gen. xl. 20. Upon the present occasion Herod gave an entertainment to his nobility and chief officers, Mark vi. 21. Whether the festival was at Macharus, where John was imprisoned, or elsewhere, we know not. — Daughter of Herodias. We learn from Josephus that the name of this daughter was Salome. - Danced. What was the nature of her dancing we are not informed. Some suppose it to have been of an indecent kind; but others, among whom is that great authority, Lightfoot, consider it as a dance to express joy for the life and prosperity of Herod. Pleased Herod. It was great condescension for one in her station to appear before the company. Esther i. 11, 12. He might have been further pleased with the grace and elegance of her movements.

7. Give her whatsoever she would ask. Mark adds, "unto the half of my kingdom." Flushed with wine and excitement, and transported with the dancing of Salome, he is impelled in a fatal moment to make a rash and dangerous promise, confirmed with an oath. For another instance of a rash vow, see Judges xi. 31.

8. Instructed of her mother. It would appear from Mark that she was not instructed before she came in to dance, but that she went out, and received her instructions before

she gave her answer. Perhaps there was a preconcerted design to accomplish John's death, though it seems hardly probable. — John Baptist's. An erroneous translation for John the Baptist's. In a charger. An antiquated word, meaning a platter or large dish. It was customary for rulers and kings to require the head of their victim to be brought to them after his execution, both as a proof of its certainty and as a gratification to their revenge. Thus in ancient Rome the head of her rival was brought to Agrippina, the mother of Nero; and, in modern times, the head of a celebrated Turkish pacha, after being cut off, was sent to Constantinople, and exhibited publicly on a dish. From the account in Mark vi. 25, we might infer that Salome was quite young, from the childlike sprightliness and haste with which she returned from her mother to the king, but the bloody request she made with apparent heartiness would indicate that she was older in years and in wickedness.

9. The king was sorry. Tetrarchs were sometimes called by this title.

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According to Mark, he was ceeding sorry." This might have been occasioned by his respect for John, Mark vi. 20, or the reproof of a not wholly deadened conscience, or his fear of a popular commotion. His sorrow, however, was of no very salutary kind, for it did not result in repentance, or arrest the sinful deed. Few are so bad as not to be more or less sorry for the commission of a wicked act, but yet they go on and consummate it. Oath's sake. This was the first cause of the subsequent crime. Herod had been ensnared into a rash promise which he had sealed with an oath. The true way then open before him was to avoid doing wrong, even at the cost of breaking his promise. As it was wrong to make the promise, much more was it wrong to keep it. No promise or oath could justify murder. But probably Herod feared lest his honor might be wounded, rather than that the sacredness of an oath would be violated. Honor, falsely so called, has led to many monstrous deeds.

Them which sat with him at meat. This was the second cause of the crime. His guests around reinforced the request of Salome, or we may suppose that he felt a reluctance to break his word in their presence. It is probable that John was obnoxious to them, as well as to Herod and Herodias, for he had not spared sinners in high places. "In how dispassionate a manner and with what uncommon candor does Matthew relate this most atrocious action! No exclamation! No exaggeration! No invective! There is no allowance, which even the friend of Herod would have urged

And his head

in extenuation of his guilt, that his historian is not ready to make. 'He was sorry; nevertheless, from a regard to his oath, and his guests.' 10. Sent and beheaded John. What a picture of the violence and cruelty of the age! A prophet of God, without accusation, or trial, or sentence, or previous notice, is slain in the prison to which the pique of a licentious woman and the injustice of her paramour had consigned him. No wonder the unquiet conscience of Herod suggested that the Great Wonder-worker was the prisoner whom he had beheaded, and who was now risen from the dead, to do mighty works. Josephus, though not favorable to Christianity, has incidentally given powerful confirmations to the truth of its history. I will adduce two instances; one relating to the character of Herodias, and the other to that of John. Josephus says of Herodias, " She was a woman full of ambition and envy, having a mighty influence on Herod, and able to persuade him to things he was not at all inclined to do." And respecting John, that some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod's army [in the war with Aretas] came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John that was called the Baptist; for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another and piety towards God, and so come to baptism.'

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11. His head was brought, &c. Mark informs us, that Herod sent an executioner immediately, who

went and beheaded John in prison. If Herod was at this time at Tiberias, the city in which his court was usually held, an interval of more than a day must have occurred before the head was brought from Machærus, where John was imprisoned. - Brought it to her mother. What a gift from a daughter to a mother! The head of one of God's greatest prophets ! Herodias had

thus an opportunity of gratifying her resentment, and being assured that her enemy was dead. But this awful crime did not go unpunished. As already mentioned by Josephus, the army of Herod was defeated by Aretas, whose daughter he had divorced to take Herodias. Both Herod and his wife were afterwards deprived of their kingdom and banished into Gaul, and afterwards to Spain, where he died; while Salome, if we may credit Nicephorus, an early writer, was killed during their exile in attempting to cross a river on the ice.

12. Buried it. Or, as Mark says, "laid it in a tomb." Went and told Jesus. As Jesus had been a friend of their master, and they had previously been sent with messages to him, they are naturally drawn to him by friendship and spiritual ties. Probably some of them became his disciples.

13-21. Parallel to Mark vi. 31 -44; Luke ix. 10-17; John vi. 1-13. The narrative dropped at verse 3 is here resumed, after the digression to relate the history of John's death.

13. Heard of it, i. e. not of the death of John, for that took place