Unpacking #35 – If Herod Had Had a Clue | Cross-Denominational Bible Study

Lookahead: People dwelling in darkness have seen a great light! Herod was a representative part of that utter darkness that suddenly got invaded. Just as there was no room at the inn on the night of the Messiah’s birth, the Herods of the day were saying there is no room for light in the darkness. But if only Herod had had a clue!! How great was that darkness? Herod claimed to be a Jew and his evil may not have been as consummate as his puppeteers, the Romans. A large percentage of the gentile population had probably degenerated to the level of the pre-flood population (“the days of Noah”)…if we look at their thirst for blood…barbarically torturous executions sometimes with thousands cheering…beheadings at birthday parties…orgies and every kind of sexual perversion…corruption and assassination at every royal and political echelon, etc. The Messiah was born into the most hostile socio-political environment possible.

1Come now, you who are rich, weep and wail over the misery to come upon you. 2Your riches have rotted and moths have eaten your clothes. 3Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and consume your flesh like fire. You have hoarded treasure in the last days. 4Look, the wages you withheld from the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts. 5You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in the day of slaughter. 6You have condemned and murdered the righteous, who did not resist you. James 5:1-6

Who on earth was James talking about? Surely not his Christian brethren?

Bible Hub, JFB Bible Commentary: James intends this address to reach Jewish unbelievers, not so much for themselves, as for the saints, that they may bear with patience the violence of the rich (Jas 5:7), knowing that God will speedily avenge them on their oppressors [Bengel]…Ye rich men; he speaks to them not simply as rich, (for riches and grace sometimes may go together), but as wicked, not only wallowing in wealth, but abusing it to pride, luxury, oppression, and cruelty…whether they were unconverted Jews, vexing the believing Jews; or Gentiles, oppressing the Christian Jews; or Christians in profession and name, who yet were so vile in their practice, as to condemn and kill the just…

So basically these are rich + really wicked unbelievers + pretend believers?

The sterling example who comes to mind during this Christmas season is…Herod the Great. Herod the Great was power crazed, but he was also paranoid–a dangerous combination. His father (Antipater), an Idumean (from Edom) who had founded the Herodian Dynasty, had been poisoned by a Jewish aristocrat who disdained the former’s shameless fraternization with and political cultivation of the Romans. It is said that the aristocrat tried to assassinate Herod’s father multiple times. Therefore, it must have been a cheery upbringing in the Herodian household. I’m sure Herod began looking over his shoulder at a very young age. As a result of this paranoia, the adult Herod the Great soon got into the assassination business himself–murdering his wife and two (possibly three) of his sons whom he accused of trying to take over the kingdom…over his dead body.

As it was, risk reduction by murder achieved nothing for Herod but a long/drawn out, extremely painful death–possibly due to an STD. (His closest relatives may have actually prevented Herod from killing himself with a knife when the pain became unbearable.)

BALTIMORE, Maryland (CNN) — A physician has suggested a grisly new theory as to what killed King Herod, of biblical fame. It was chronic kidney disease complicated by a severe infection…said Jan Hirschmann, a clinician at a Veterans’ Administration hospital and professor of medicine at the University of Washington. The condition, known as Fournier’s gangrene, was announced Friday after a “historical autopsy” — an annual event at the Clinico-Pathologic Conference (CPC) organized by the VA and University of Maryland School of Medicine…The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus recorded details of (Herod’s) death, telling of symptoms that included intense itching, intestinal pain, shortness of breath, convulsions, and gangrene…Hirschmann used these texts to make his diagnosis.¹

Whether Josephus merely documented the prevailing legends about Herod’s demise or not, I believe that his death was definitely not pretty and he should have been weeping and wailing about the coming misery. Instead he was planning vengeful destruction up to the very last second…

…and though he were near his death, he contrived the following wicked designs. He commanded that all the principal men of the entire Jewish nation, wheresoever they lived, should be called to him (then locked up in the hippodrome)…And now the king was in a wild rage against them all…because during his lifetime they were ready to revolt from him, and to abuse the donations he had dedicated to God. He desired therefore, that as soon as they see he hath given up the ghost, they shall place soldiers round the hippodrome (and) they shall give orders to have those that are in custody shot with the soldiers’ arrows…as he is dying, they will make him secure that his will shall be executed in what he charges (his soldiers) to do…²

But in addition to not considering it distasteful to slaughter all the Jewish leaders in Israel and even his own children, he slaughtered innocent babies and young children. Jesus later clarified what would happen to those who caused His little children to stumble. For Herod’s crime of slaughtering the innocents, it would indeed (Luke 17:2) have been better if a millstone had been tied around his neck and he was cast into the sea. (Note: this method of execution may have been engineered by the Romans who were “skilled” at prolonging the process, with the worst case being torturous crucifixion. The child abuser may have had to endure being sown into a leather sack before “sleeping with the fishes.”)³

Incredibly this abomination was not Herod’s worst offense. As an agent of the devil, he had the supreme arrogance to think that he could short circuit the royal trajectory of the Messiah by assassinating Him in the cradle, so to speak. When the magi told him that a King had been born, he didn’t care if it was the Messiah or the Son of David or the Son of God foretold of in the sacred Jewish scriptures. He had the audacity to characterize the Messiah as competition that he could quickly eliminate. Despite the fact that he had been raised by a Jewish mother, Herod evidently had slept through the classes about the Great I Am.

Well, enough-already of dominating this post with Herod’s backstory. Let’s look at Herod’s reward:

Your riches have rotted and moths have eaten your clothes.

The riches of his fertile reproductive power had been decimated; and it’s possible that he “wore” open/septic wounds in lieu of kingly robes at the end

Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and consume your flesh like fire.

Herod’s ill-gotten riches that he had accumulated were filthy and corrupt. His neglect of everything and everyone else that interfered with this accumulation of wealth and power eventually caught up to him…leading to physical sickness with searing, maddening, terminal pain

You have hoarded treasure in the last days.

All that hoarded treasure, which BTW he couldn’t take with him, drove his descendants to carry on Herod’s irrepressible legacy of amassing filthy lucre

Look, the wages you withheld from the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts.

The cries of countless Jewish people who had suffocated under the relentless lash of Herod’s brutal tax machine, had reached Hashem Zebaoth

You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in the day of slaughter.

He was surrounded by resplendent luxury and riches (fifteen palaces) on that fateful day that he decided to kill the Messiah.

You have condemned and murdered the righteous, who did not (and could not) resist you.

God intervened on His Son’s behalf, although Herod still got away with murdering many innocents–or so he thought.

People dwelling in darkness have seen a great light! Herod was a representative part of that utter darkness that suddenly got invaded. Just as there was no room at the inn on the night of the Messiah’s birth, the Herods of the day were saying there is no room for light in the darkness. But if only Herod had had a clue!! How great was that darkness? Herod claimed to be a Jew and his evil may not have been as consummate as his puppeteers, the Romans. A large percentage of the gentile population had probably degenerated to the level of the pre-flood population (“the days of Noah”)…if we look at their thirst for blood…barbarically torturous executions sometimes with thousands cheering…beheadings at birthday parties…orgies and every kind of sexual perversion…corruption and assassination at every royal and political echelon, etc. The Messiah was born into the most hostile socio-political environment possible. Not only that–He was born into the most humble of circumstances–as a member of the most oppressed race and socio-economic class in Israel. There was barely enough room for the King of Kings to be born and certainly no hygenic space with safety and comfort…or dignity. As Pastor Joseph Prince said on TV today, the One who harnessed the vast seas with supernatural swaddling bands when they first burst forth (Job 38:9) was now Himself confined with bands of swaddling cloth in a stone feeding trough. Within days/months, He would be hunted for annihilation by Herod. The Messiah was “parachuted” into a maximum risk situation on a mission that appeared to have so many obstacles that it was doomed to failure. Why did God choose that particular point of intersection on the cosmic timeline? Why the path of most resistance?

In the screenplay for The Nativity Story movie, Mary had an amazing comeback line when her parents and Joseph were essentially saying, “What were you thinking? The people will stone you!!??” She said, “There is a will for this child greater than my fear of what they may do.” God’s will was to send us a savior who had set his face like flint to do whatever was necessary to save the human race–at a time when He should have wiped many of them off the face of the earth. The best and the worst of people were living in Israel at that time–the most barbarously depraved…juxtaposed against the inevitable remnant of His chosen people. It was God’s will to save/rescue the lowest of the low, the most lost, the most persecuted (including those who were being relentlessly persecuted by the adversary) and even the most hypocritically resistant. His resolve was indomitable; His focus was unwaveringly razor sharp; He would not be denied and He would move heaven and earth to accomplish His will–using the tiniest of humans to turn planet earth on its head. 🙂 If Herod had had a clue.

I don’t know about you, but I’ll never be able to thank God enough–for the priceless gift of Jesus, for saving us, and for allowing us access to His Kingdom.