Mark 6:28 Commentary and Bible Study

John the Baptist’s head was brought on this tray or platter, and given to the fifteen-year-old girl, and she gave it to her mother. To gloat over: what a woman! Freshly executed: to gloat over! Frighteningly, like mother, like daughter. Like father, like son. Herod the Great, Herod Antipas: Herodias, Salome. She gave it to her mother. The last throw of conscience! Herod Antipas, he ruled for some years in that region after this; but not long. The father of his true wife, who was sent home, brought an army against him, and disciplined him very sorely. He didn't bring him down; this was part of the Roman Empire: you couldn’t bring down a ruler who Caesar had appointed. But he humiliated him and stripped him of his army, and a good deal else besides. Notwithstanding, Herod Antipas, because of Herodias – she was such a proud woman; she said to him one day, ‘I want you to go to Rome. We will both go to Rome because another relation of yours has been given high honours, and you should have those honours too. Let's go and claim our high honours.’ So, browbeaten by Herodias, though no doubt he wanted them too, Herod Antipas made a mission to Rome, to appeal to Caesar for greater honours. But many of his enemies, who he had wronged in life took that as their good day. They sent lawyers to Rome to tell Caesar – whether they were true or false, I know not – of all the intrigues that he had allegedly been involved in, against Caesar. As Herod Antipas with Herodias went to claim his honours, so Cesar received and believed all the charges against him. Herod was humiliated, stripped of his authority, and banished into exile, where he ultimately died in misery. But he faced a far greater judgment when he would stand before God – the murderer of John the Baptist.