Acts 25:13

Ἀγρ. ὁ βασιλεὺς : this was Herod Agrippa II., son of Agrippa I., whose tragic end is recorded in chap. 12. At the time of his father's death he was only seventeen, and for a time he lived in retirement, as Claudius was persuaded not to entrust him with the kingdom of Judæa. But on the death of Herod, king of Chalcis, A.D. 48, Claudius not only gave the young Agrippa the vacant throne, A.D. 50, but transferred to him the government of the Temple, and the right of appointing the high priest. His opinion on religious questions would therefore be much desired by Festus. Subsequently he obtained the old tetrarchies of Philip and Lysanias, and the title of king was bestowed upon him. We have thus a proof of St. Luke's accuracy in that he calls him βασιλεύς, cf. Acts 26:27, but not king of Judæa, although he was the last Jewish king in Palestine. Bernice and Drusilla were his sisters. He offended the Jews not only by building his palace so as to overlook the Temple, but also by his constant changes in the priesthood. In the Jewish wax he took part with the Romans, by whom at its close he was confirmed in the government of his kingdom, and received considerable additions to it. When Titus, after the fall of Jerusalem, celebrated his visit to Cæsarea Philippi Herod's capital, called by him Neronias in honour of Nero by magnificent games and shows, it would seem that Agrippa must have been present; and if so, he doubtless joined as a Roman in the rejoicings over the fete of his people, Hamburger, Real-Encyclopädie des Judentums, ii., 1, 30, “Agrippa II.”; Schürer, Jewish People, div. i., vol. ii., p. 191 ff., “Herod' (6), Hastings' B.D., Farrar, The Herods, p. 193 ff. (1898). Βερνίκη (Βερεν. = Macedonian form of φερενίκη, see Blass, in loco, and C.I.G., 361; C.I. Att., iii., i., 556, Headlam in Hastings' B.D.): the eldest of the three daughters of Agrippa I. She was betrothed, but apparently never married, to Marcus, son of Alexander, the Alabarch of Alexandria (see Schürer for correct reading of Jos., Ant., xix., 5, 1, Jewish People, div. i., vol. ii., p. 342, note). On his death at the age of thirteen she was married to her uncle, Herod of Chalcis, Jos., u.s., but after a few years she was left a widow, and lived in the house of her brother Agrippa II. In order to allay the worst suspicions which were current as to this intimacy, she married Polemon, king of Cilicia, Ant., xx., 7, 3 (Juv., Sat., vi., 156 ff.), but she soon left him and resumed the intimacy with her brother. Like Agrippa she showed openly at least a certain deference for the Jewish religion, and on one occasion, says Schürer, u.s., p. 197, we find even her, a bigot as well as a wanton, a Nazirite in Jerusalem, B.J., ii., 15, 1. This was in A.D. 66, and she endeavoured while in the capital to stay the terrible massacre of Florus “the one redeeming feature of her career,” B.D. 2. But later on, exasperated by the Jewish populace who burnt her palace, she became, like her brother, a partisan of the Romans, and in turn the mistress of Vespasian and of Titus, Tac., Hist., ii., 81; Suet., Tit., 7; Jos., B.J., ii., 17, 6. O. Holtzmann, Neutest. Zeitgeschichte, p. 83, speaks of Drusilla as a worthy sister of Bernice: he might have said the same of the other sister, Mariamne, since she too left her husband for the wealth of Demetrius, the Jewish Alabarch of Alexandria, Jos., Ant., xx., 7, 3. ἀσπασόμενοι, see critical note. No doubt an official visit of congratulation paid by Agrippa as a Roman vassal upon the procurator's entry on his office. The future participle makes the sense quite easy, but if we read the aorist it looks as if Agrippa and Bernice had previously saluted Felix, and afterwards came to his official residence, Cæsarea. Rendall includes in κατήντησαν not only the notion of arrival but also of settling down for a stay short or long: “came to stay at Cæsarea and saluted Felix” (aorist), but see Simcox, Language of the N. T., p. 125.