Herod the Great

Herod was the son of Antipater, an Idumean who rose to power beside the high priest Hyrcanus II (Josephus, Antiquities 14.8–9). The Roman senate named him king at the urging of Mark Antony and Octavian (Josephus, Antiquities 14.381–389), and three years later he took Jerusalem with Roman troops and had the last Hasmonean king put to death (Josephus, Antiquities 14.487–491). He married Mariamne, a granddaughter of the Hasmonean king Aristobulus II (Josephus, Jewish War 1.344–345), and later had the aged Hyrcanus executed (Josephus, Antiquities 15.173–178). Tacitus says that Antony gave him his throne and that Augustus enlarged his power (Tacitus, Histories 5.9). See Herod the Great Becomes King of Judea.

Josephus calls his rebuilding of the temple “a very great work” (Josephus, Antiquities 15.380–390); see Herod Rebuilds the Temple. Josephus, almost the only source for his reign, says that he was about seventy in his last illness (Josephus, Antiquities 17.148) and that he died thirty-four years after the death of Antigonus and thirty-seven after the Romans declared him king. He calls him a man “of great barbarity towards all men equally” (Josephus, Antiquities 17.191). For the date see the Death of Herod and the Division of His Kingdom.

Matthew places the birth of Jesus “in the days of King Herod” and says that Herod, hearing of a child born to be king, had the boys of Bethlehem under two years old killed (Matthew 2:1–16). Matthew is the only Gospel that tells of it.