'For Herod himself had sent forth and laid hold upon John, and bound
him in prison for Herodias' sake, his brother Philip's wife: for he
had married her. 18. For John had said unto Herod, It is not lawful
for thee to have thy brother's wife. 19. Therefore Herodias had a
quarrel against him, and would have killed him; but she could not: 20.
For Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just man and an holy, and
observed him; and when he heard him, he did many things, and heard him
gladly. 21. And when a convenient day was come, that Herod on his
birthday made a supper to his lords, high captains, and chief estates
of Galilee; 22. And when the daughter of the said Herodias came in,
and danced, and pleased Herod and them that sat with him, the king
said unto the damsel, Ask of me whatsoever thou wilt, and I will give
it thee. 23. And he sware unto her, Whatsoever thou shalt ask of me, I
will give it thee, unto the half of my kingdom. 24. And she went
forth, and said unto her mother, What shall I ask? And she said, The
head of John the Baptist. 25. And she came in straightway with haste
unto the king, and asked, saying, I will that thou give me by and by
in a charger the head of John the Baptist. 26. And the king was
exceeding sorry; yet for his oath's sake, and for their sakes which
sat with him, he would not reject her. 27. And immediately the king
sent an executioner, and commanded his head to be brought: and he went
and beheaded him in the prison, 28. And brought his head in a charger,
and gave it to the damsel: and the damsel gave it to her
mother.'--Mark vi. 17-28.
This Herod was a son of the grim old tiger who slew the infants of
Bethlehem. He was a true cub of a bad litter, with his father's
ferocity, but without his force. He was sensual, cruel, cunning, and
infirm of purpose. Rome allowed him to play at being a king, but kept
him well in hand. No doubt his anomalous position as a subject prince
helped to make him the bad man he was. Herodias, the Jezebel to this
Ahab, was his brother's wife, and niece to both her husband and Herod.
Elijah was not far off; John's daring outspokenness, of course, made
the indignant woman his implacable enemy.
I. This story gives an example of the waking of conscience. When
Christ's name reached even the court, where such tidings would have no
ready entrance, what was only an occasion of more or less languid
gossip and curiosity to others stirred the sleeping accuser in Herod's
breast. He had no doubt as to who this new Teacher, armed with
mightier powers than John who 'did no miracles' had ever possessed,
was. His conviction that he was John, come back with increased power,
was immediate, and was held fast, in spite of the buzz of other
opinions.
Note the unusual order of the sentence in verse 16: 'John whom I
beheaded, he is,' etc. The terrified king blurts out the name of his
dread first, then tremblingly takes the guilt of the deed to himself,
and last speaks the terrifying thought that he is risen. A man who has
a sin in his memory can never be sure that its ghost will not suddenly
start up. Trivial incidents will rouse the sleeping conscience. Some
nothing, a chance word, a scent, a sound, the look on a face, the glow
of an evening sky, may bring all the foul past up again. A puff of
wind clears away the mist of oblivion, and the old sin starts into
vividness as if done yesterday. You touch a secret spring, and there
yawns in the floor a gap leading down to a dungeon.
Conscience thus wakened is free from all illusions as to guilt. '_I_
beheaded.' There are no excuses now about Herodias' urgency, or
Salome's beauty, or the rash oath, or the need of keeping it, before
his guests. The deed stands clear of all these, as his own act. It is
ever so. When conscience speaks, sophistications about temptations or
companions, or necessity, or the more learned excuses which
philosophers make about environment and heredity as weakening
responsibility and diminishing guilt, shrivel to nothing. The present
operations of conscience distinctly predict future still more complete
remembrance of, and sense of responsibility for, long past sins. There
will be a resurrection of men's evil deeds, as well as of their
bodies, and each of them will shake its gory locks at its author, and
say, 'Thou didst it.'
There is no proof that Herod was a Sadducee, disbelieving in a
resurrection; but, whether he was or not, the terrors of conscience
made short work of the difficulties in the way of his supposition. He
was right in believing that evil deeds are gifted with an awful
immortality, and will certainly rise again to shake their doer's soul
with terrors.
II. The narrative harks back to tell the story of John's martyrdom. It
sets vividly forth the inner discord and misery of half-and-half
convictions. Herodias was strong enough to get John put in prison, and
apparently she tried with all the tenacity of a malignant woman to
have him assassinated, by contrived accident or open sentence; but
_that_ she could not manage.
Mark's analysis of the play of contending feeling in the weak king is
barely intelligible in the Authorised Version, but is clearly shown in
the Revised Version. He 'feared John,'--the jailer afraid of his
prisoner,--'knowing that he was a righteous man and an holy.' Goodness
is awful. The worst men know it when they see it, and pay it the
homage of dread, if not of love. 'And kept him safe' (not _ob_- but
_pre_-served him); that is, from Herodias' revenge. 'And when he heard
him, he was much perplexed.' The reading thus translated differs from
that in the Authorised Version by two letters only, and obviously is
preferable. Herod was a weak-willed man, drawn by two stronger natures
pulling in opposite directions.
So he alternated between lust and purity, between the foul kisses of
the temptress at his side and the warnings of the prophet in his
dungeon. But in all his vacillation he could not help listening to
John, but 'heard him gladly,' and mind and conscience approved the
nobler voice. Thus he staggered along, with religion enough to spoil
some of his sinful delights, but not enough to make him give them up.
Such a state of partial conviction is not unusual. Many of us know
quite well that, if we would drop some habit, which may not be very
grave, we should be less encumbered in some effort which it is our
interest or duty to make; but the conviction has not gone deeper than
the understanding. Like a shot which has only got half way through the
armoured skin of a man-of-war, it has done no execution, nor reached
the engine-room where the power that drives the life is. In more
important matters such imperfect convictions are widespread. The
majority of slaves to vice know perfectly well that they should give
it up. And in regard to the salvation which is in Christ, there are
multitudes who know in their inmost consciousness that they ought to
be Christians.
Such a condition is one liable to unrest and frequent inner conflict.
Truly, he is 'much perplexed' whose conscience pulls him one way, and
his inclinations another. There is no more miserable condition than
that of the man whose will is cleft in twain, and who has a continual
battle raging within. Conscience may be bound and thrust down into a
dungeon, like John, and lust and pride may be carousing overhead, but
their mirth is hollow, and every now and then the stern voice comes up
through the gratings, and the noisy revelry is hushed, while _it_
speaks doom.
Such a state of inner strife comes often from unwillingness to give up
one special evil. If Herod could have plucked up resolve to pack
Herodias about her business, other things might have come right. Many
of us are ruined by being unwilling to let some dear delight go. 'If
thine eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out.'
We do not make up for such cowardly shrinking from doing right by
pleasure in the divine word which we are not obeying. Herod no doubt
thought that his delight in listening to John went some way to atone
for his refusal to get rid of Herodias. Some of us think ourselves
good Christians because we assent to truth, and even like to hear it,
provided the speaker suit our tastes. Glad hearing only aggravates the
guilt of not doing. It is useless to admire John if you keep Herodias.
III. The end of the story gives an example of the final powerlessness
of such half-convictions. One need not repeat the grim narrative of
the murder. We all know it. One knows not which is the more
repugnant--the degradation of the poor child Salome to the level of a
dancing-girl, the fell malignity of the mother who would shame her
daughter for such an end, the maudlin generosity of Herod, flushed
with wine and excited passion, the hideous request from lips so young,
the ineffectual sorrow of Herod, his fantastic sense of obligation,
which scrupled to break a wicked promise and did not scruple to murder
a prophet, or the ghastly picture of the girl hurrying to her mother
with the freshly severed head, dripping on to the platter and staining
her fair young hands.
This was what all the convictions of John's righteousness had come to.
So had ended the half yielding to his brave rebukes and the
ineffectual aspirations after cleaner living. That chaos of lust and
blood teaches that partial reformation is apt to end in a deeper
plunge into fouler mire. If a man is false to his feeblest conviction,
he makes himself a worse man all through. A partial thaw is generally
followed by keener frost than before. A soul half melted and cooled
again is harder to melt than before. An abortive slave-rising rivets
the chains.
The incident teaches that simple weakness may come to be the parent of
great sin. In a world like this, where there are always more voices
soliciting to wrong than to right, to be weak is in the long run to be
wicked. Fatal facility of disposition ruins hundreds of unthinking
men. Nothing is more needful than that young people should learn to
say 'No,' and should cultivate a wholesome obstinacy which is afraid
of nothing but of sinning against God.
If we look onwards to this Herod's last appearance in Scripture, we
get further lessons. He desired to see Jesus that he might see a
miracle done to amuse him, like a conjuring trick. Convictions and
terrors had faded from his frivolous soul. He has forgotten that he
once thought Jesus to be John come again. He sees Christ, and sees
nothing in Him; and Christ says nothing to Herod, because He knew it
would be useless.
It is an awful thing to put one's self beyond the hearing of that
voice, which 'all that are in the graves shall hear.' The most
effectual stopping for our ears is neglect of what we know to be His
will. If we will not listen to Him, we shall gradually lose the power
of hearing Him, and then He will lock His lips, and answer nothing. We
dare not say that Jesus is dumb to any man while life lasts, but we
dare not refrain from saying that that condition of utter
insensibility to His voice may be indefinitely approached by us, and
that neglected convictions bring us terribly far on the way towards
it.