John the Baptist and Herod Antipas

Herod Antipas fell in love with his dead brother's wife Herodias while they were in Rome. Antipas divorced his wife to marry Herodias sometime in A.D. 34.

John the Baptist spoke boldly against Antipas' divorce, saying that it was contrary to the Law. For that and for speaking against other undefined evils done by Herod Antipas, John was put into prison. Josephus, however, tells us that Herod Antipas was afraid of John's popularity that it would lead to political rebellion.

Although we don't have any other information about what else John said about Herod Antipas, we can say this: The Bible only records John speaking against Herod breaking God's Law. In the Bible, John did not speak against the foolishness of Herod's political decision in divorcing another king's daughter and thus endangering Galilee in order to marry his brother's wife. In other words the Bible (as it addresses John's preaching) is only concerned with God's Law, not political savvy. Secondly, John did not verbally attack Herod as a leader, neither did he suggest that somebody else should be placed in his position... he only spoke out against an immoral act accomplished by Herod.

It is possible that the Galileans of Jesus' day compared Herodias to the wicked queen Jezebel because she was so wicked and Herod Antipas was compared to Jezebel's husband king Ahab by the populace. Whatever the truth about that may be we do know that Herod Antipas was very unpopular among the Jews. He converted to Judaism and obeyed many of their customs, but offended the Jews with many of his Roman ways and his marriage to Herodias.

John the Baptist simply reflected and stated publicly what the people were talking about with each other. For that he was imprisoned by Herod Antipas. Rulers in Jesus' day tried to protect their positions by imprisoning or killing people they believed posed a threat to them. Victims could be family members, mothers and people among their population who posed any threat to them. In Herod's case, he was threatened by a wilderness preacher named John the Baptist because John publicly announced that Herod was wrong in divorcing his wife in order to marry his brother's wife Herodius.

Once in jail Herod was amused by John and liked listening to him. It may be that Herod really wanted to do what was right but was coerced by his position and his wife to do terrible things. His behavior several years later with Jesus shows that he did indeed have a fascination with the spiritual, because when Jesus stood before him he was delighted with the hopes that Jesus would perform some miracle for him.

Unfortunately for John, Herodias finally maneuvered to have her husband behead John. Her daughter danced for Antipas thus pleasing him tremendously. Antipas promised her up to half the kingdom (probably given after his death), but she only wanted John the Baptist's head. That request was previously set up by her mother Herodias. Evidently, Herodias did not find John as interesting as her husband.