Mark 6:17-20

‘For Herod himself had sent out and laid hold on John and bound him in prison, for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, for he had married her. For John said to Herod “It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.” And Herodias set herself against him and desired to kill him, but she could not, for Herod feared John knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and kept him safe. And when he heard him he was greatly perplexed, and he heard him gladly.'

This summary of the situation reveals Herod's initial reluctance to act against John, only doing so because of his strong-minded wife's insistence and John's accusations. But even then he had refused to allow him to be killed. John had enjoyed Herod's special protection, for Herod had respected and feared him as a true man of God and would bring him into his presence to hear what he had to say. He did not want such blood on his hands. We have here an interesting picture of a divided Herod. On the one hand he was a tyrant, but on the other he had a kind of recognition that he should be taking God into account. Thus when it came to religious matters he vacillated between one position and the other. There is an interesting parallel here with the story of Ahab and Jezebel, where another weak king was controlled by his wife.

‘He was greatly perplexed' (some manuscripts have ‘did many things') probably included the fact that he was in two minds about what he should do about Herodias. A man's struggle with himself against the attractions of a desirable woman is the cause of many a man's perplexity. The flesh struggles with the conscience, and neither will cease its demands, often making the man behave strangely and act seemingly out of character.

‘Had bound him in prison.' Josephus tells us that this was at Machaerus near the Dead Sea, a bleak place where there was both palace and prison. Mark does not tell us anything about the place where the events occurred.

‘Herodias, his brother Philip's wife.' Names in the Herod family were of great complexity not helped by the fact that Herod and Philip were both family names and given freely. ‘Herodias' was the granddaughter of Herod the Great, being the daughter of his son Aristobulus. Thus she was niece to Herod Antipas. ‘His ‘brother Philip' was not Philip the Tetrarch who later married Salome. Rather he was another Herod Philip who lived as a private citizen at Rome, and who was a son of Herod the Great by a second Mariamne, and thus also Herodias' uncle.

Marriage to Herodias was not only attractive because she was clearly a desirable woman, inheriting the beauty of her grandmother Mariamne, but also because she was of royal descent as part Hasmonean and thus more acceptable to the people than Antipas himself who had no recognised Jewish blood in him. But if this was part of his reason for marrying her it failed, partly due to John the Baptiser's strictures, for they hated him even more.

‘It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.' Marriage to a brother's wife while the brother was still alive was forbidden (Leviticus 18:16; Leviticus 20:21). This condemnation and Herodias' resulting hatred, added to John the Baptiser's strong support among the people. And they hated Herod Antipas all the more for this behaviour, thus making for a possible uprising. These were the reasons for John's imprisonment.