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#11.
The Remaining Members of Herod's House.
pp. 112 - 116
Unless the reader is already acquainted with the history of these times, it will probably
come as a surprise to him to discover how much the affairs of the Roman Empire, often
linked with some of the greatest names of the period, became interwoven with the
fortunes of the Herods and those of the Jewish nation. By ways that were often devious
and dark, these men prepared the background upon which the supreme miracle of the
ages was to be enacted. While our chief concern will always be this miracle of love,
an acquaintance with the historic background cannot but help to enhance its teaching
and reveal its character. We have so far devoted two short articles to the tragedy of
Herod the Great. We are only too conscious of the scrappy reading that such a
compressed account must make, but we must now pass on to some consideration of the
successors to that blood-stained throne.
At various times Herod had made and cancelled a number of wills. At one time
he had bequeathed his entire kingdom to Philip, the son of Mariamne, daughter of
Simon the Priest, but finally he appointed Archelaus to be King of Judaea with Samaria
and Iturea, Antipas to be Tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea, and Philip to be Tetrarch of
Trachonitus. Of the administration of Archelaus Josephus writes that Judaea was left a
prey to ten thousand disorders, and we can well understand the words of Matt. 2: 22:
"But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judaea in the room of his father
Herod, he was afraid to go thither."
On account of his cruelty and his marriage with his brother's widow, Archelaus was
deposed and banished to Vienne in Gaul. There is a tradition that his journey to Rome to
receive the kingdom was the basis of the Lord's parable of the nobleman in Luke 19: If
so, it shows how deep an impression the hatred of this man had made upon the minds of
the people, for the Jews sent a message after him to Rome saying, in effect, "We will not
have this man to reign over us".
With the passing of Archelaus, kingship departed from Judaea, and a Roman
Procurator, such as Pilate or Felix, took the place of the King of the Jews. As Archelaus
does not appear in the Scriptural record, except in Matt. 2:, we must pass on to other
characters.
Students of Scripture often confuse Philip I, the son of Herod the Great and the
second Mariamne, and Philip the Tetrarch, the son of Cleopatra of Jerusalem (not to be
confused with Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt). Philip I lived and died without occupying
an official position, and only comes into the pages of Scripture at all on account of
the abduction of his ambitious wife Herodias by his half-brother, Herod Antipas
(Matt. 14: 3).