Matthew 2:16

II. THE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS.

16. Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked.

He had directed the wise men to report to him after their visit to Bethlehem. Their return to their own country without complying with his wishes seemed to Herod. mockery of his authority and excited his rage. As they were not his subjects they were under no obligation to obey him, especially in. matter of this kind. This led to. terrible tragedy. He had ascertained that the royal child was an infant and born at Bethlehem, but he had no means of identifying it. Unaware of the flight from Bethlehem the bloody and malignant king determined to make sure of the death of one whom he regarded as. future rival by slaying all male children under two years, that being the age to which he was led by his inquiries of the wise men. Some have held that, inasmuch as Josephus, who wrote about eighty years later, makes no mention of this slaughter, it is improbable that it should have occurred, but it must be borne in mind, 1. That Josephus, after the lapse of nearly. century, may have known nothing of it; 2. That as. prejudiced and dishonest Jew, averse to saying anything whatever in favor of Christianity, he may purposely have omitted it, or, 3. It was so insignificant, compared with some of Herod's slaughters, that he may have deemed it too trivial to mention. His whole career was red with murder. He massacred priests and nobles; he slew the members of the Sanhedrim; he caused the high priest to be drowned before his eyes; be put to death, at one time, two learned doctors of the law and about fifty of their pupils; he strangled his own wife Mariamne, the only being he ever seemed to have loved; he slew three of his sons, the uncle and father of his wife, his mother-in-law, his uncle, his nearest friends, and thousands who had less claims upon him. So cruel was the lot of the Jewish nation that, after his death, Jewish ambassadors to Augustus Cæsar declared "that the survivors during his reign were even more wretched than those he had put to death." Besides, the historian Macrobius makes an evident allusion, incidently to the Bethlehem massacre when he says that "Augustus, on being informed that among the boys under two years of age whom Herod had ordered to be slain in Syria, his own son was also slain, said it was better to be Herod's pig than his son." While Macrobius was mistaken about Herod's son being slain in this slaughter his language is, no doubt,. reminiscence of the tragedy of Bethlehem.

Sent forth and slew.

A band of his murderous satellites were sent, and not only slew the male children of Bethlehem, but those of that vicinity. Attempts have been made to estimate the number slain, and it is held that Bethlehem could not have had over 2,000 inhabitants, not over one-twentieth of whom could have been male children under two years of age, or that about fifty in all were probably slain. Only. fiend incarnate could order such. murder of innocents, and only satellites of. fiend could carry out such inhuman orders.