Matthew 14:3-5 (NIV)
Now Herod had arrested John and bound him and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, for John had been saying to him: “It is not lawful for you to have her.” Herod wanted to kill John, but he was afraid of the people, because they considered him a prophet.
Herod was a weak man, easily manipulated and easily swayed. The “crime” for which he imprisoned John was simply reminding him of the requirements of God’s law that he was violating.
It was not that John was mistaken, either in his knowledge of what the law said, or in how he was applying it to Herod’s specific situation. The law clearly stated that a brother’s wife was off limits (Leviticus 18:16). Herod divorced his first wife in order to marry Herodias, his half-brother. Herodias divorced Herod’s brother at the same time, with the same ends in mind. Not only was the relationship forbidden by God, but this pair of divorces were not undertaken because of any stated fault of the former spouses, but purely for the sake of getting into a relationship with someone else – adultery.
John’s accusations were galling to Herod, because he had no reasonable defense. He was out of line with God’s moral standards, and he knew it. And they were doubly galling because Herodias was an ambitious woman who saw that Herod had the potential to give in to John’s urgings, which would have cast her away from the center of power that Herod represented.
So Herod was stuck. On one side was his wife who was continually badgering him to execute John in order to protect her own position. On the other side was his fear of an uprising among the people, who he feared would rise up against him if he were to execute someone that they considered a genuine prophet. As Mark notes (Mark 6:19-20), Herod himself believed John to be a holy and righteous man, was fascinated by him, and listened to him all the time. That alone was enough to alarm Herodias. But she was both patient and sly. She knew that as long as Herod held John in jail, the time would come when she would be able to force the issue and have him executed. She would wait.
Father, it is clear that Herod didn’t have to be in that hard place. He could have avoided getting there in the first place by simply obeying the law and staying married to his first wife. But the thought of repenting, or of divorcing Herodias was even harder. Herod was addicted to his lust for Herodias, and he was a morally weak man who was unwilling to admit that he was in the wrong. Ultimately that weakness made his life far more unpleasant that it needed to be, including a war caused by his divorce from his first wife, and ultimate exile. How much better it is to live in accordance with Your clear moral teachings from the beginning, so that we can live under Your blessings every day. Amen.