Biblical commentary on the New Testament - The Christian ...

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Matthew XIV. 2-5.
defer therefore the fuller consideration of them to Matthew xvi. 14.
As to Herod, Mark, agreeing with Matthew, relates that he believed
Jesus to have been John raised from the dead. He expresses tliis
opinion directly to those about him. (ITaZf = dovAo^, nas). According
to Luke, it was the mere repbrt of this which disturbed him
(dcrjTTopei, Lukc ix. 7), yet his wish to see Jesus (Luke ix. 9),
would rather lead us to the opposite conclusion, namely, that he
himself disbelieved the report of John's resurrection. (Compare
Luke xxiii. 8.) This seeming contradiction disappears, however,
when we consider how completely this worldly man must have been
involved in darkness. At the first hearing of the report his heart
would be shaken with fear, for conscience would testify that from a
desire to please others and agaiuist his better knowledge (see Mark
vi. 26), he had caused the Baptist to be murdered. A mind so
superficial, however, would soon pacify itself and become convinced
of the improbability of the whole matter. His Sadduceeism
would come to his aid (see on Markviii. 15, corajjaredwitli Matthew
xvi. 6), and put to flight every idea of a probable existence beyond
the grave. Consistency in the views of such sensualists is not to be
looked for ;
they deny the reality of divine things, yet amidst their
very denial their heart quakes with the secret belief of them. "With
metempsychosis we have here nothing to do, for it is clear they did
not believe that John's soul had passed into another body, but that
he was himself personally risen from the dead. Not even at John
ix. 3, are we to look for traces of a belief in metempsychosis, or the
pre-existence of souls, during the times of the apostles. (Compare
the Comment, on that passage.)
Ver. 3, 4.—The aorists are, in the connexion, clearly to be un-
derstood as equivalent to the pluperf'^ct tense. (Compare Winer's
Gram., p. 251.) The place of John's imprisonment was, according
to Joseplms (Antiq. xviii. 5, 2), the fortress of Machaerus. The
notorious Herodias, with whom Antipas lived in incestuous connex-
ion, was the daughter of Aristobulus, a sou of Herod the Great.
The latter married her to his son Philip (who is not to be confounded
with Philip the Tetrarch, see on Matthew ii. 22), who was
disinherited by his father, and lived subsequently merely as a private
individual. For this reason, his wife, Herodias, preferred the con-
nexion with the tetrarch, Antipas, that she might become a reign-
ing princess. Antipas discarded in her favour, his former wife, the
daughter of Aretas, the Arabian prince. (Compare Joseplms, Antiq.
xviii. 5, 1.) John, the stern preacher of repentance, had dared to
rebuke this scandalous union, and drawn upon himself the unmiti-
gated hatred of Herodias. In Antipas himself, it would appear,
there often arose feelings of a better nature. (Mark vi. 20.)
Ver. 5.—Mark paints (ver. 20) Herod in more favourable colours,