HERODIAS

1. Herodias the Opportunist 

Sages from the ages have often told that the look of a book does not always convey its accurate contents.  A once-fooled wise man once warned wailfully that beauty was “vain” if in content it lacked the fear of the Lord; that, in the end, the good heart, more than the good face, earned true praise (Proverbs 31:30).  Pretty packages sometimes come with a pomp that belies their content of woes.  Hasty eyes often miss the codes of caution concealed on the charming face.  That resembles the old story I wish to tell today about Herodias, the bloody Queen of Galilee.

Herodias is prominent in the New Testament and in Medieval literature as a femme fatale, a beautiful female terminator of men, especially men of destiny.  She is in that respect equated with the Old Testament likes of Delilah and Jezebel.  Her name in Greek meant, “to monitor,” or “to watch over.”  Remember that in the course of this story.

Herodias was a princess of the Herodian dynasty of Judea in the first-century Roman Empire, the granddaughter of Herod the Great, daughter of Aristobulus, and sister of Herod Agrippa I.  She was born into and grew up in royalty.  ‘Herodias’ is the feminine form of ‘Herod.’  So, like any of the other historical and Bible Herods who were rulers and kings, she was royalty too.

Herodias was married to Herod Philip her uncle who was brother to Herod Antipas, each of whom was ruler of their provinces. During one of Antipas’ visits to Rome, Herodias fell in love with him and promptly left Philip her husband, eloping with Antipas her other uncle and brother-in-law.  To marry her, Antipas had to dispose of his wife Phasaelis the daughter of Arestas the Arabian king.  We are not told if the fault was hers.  To that extent, we might consider Herodias as usurper, as disrupter of the home, as divider of family, as divider of brothers and friends, as supplanter.

Herod Philip, the first husband of Herodias, was supposed to be heir to Herod the Great his father, but fell out of favour with that father.  Consequently, he lost his place as ruler of Judea.  Apparently with no more royal clouts about that man, Herodias, who often sought the glamourous, left Philip for his brother Antipas who still had a throne as Tetrarch or ruler of Galilee.  It will then appear that she had not really gone into the first marriage for love of the man but for love of his status and his means.  When those glamours ceased, the ambitious Herodias promptly fished in other waters, not minding if they were abominable incestuous waters.  And nobody dared speak to her about ‘her personal choices,’ unless they were prepared to lose their heads.  If I may ask you, please, Are there such desperately deadly humans today?

2. Herodias the Manipulator 

John the Baptist told Herod Antipas that what he had done was not proper.  For that ‘sermon,’ Herodias got very displeased and sought to kill the young preacher who was no more than thirty-two years then (Mark 6:19).  To my mind, that magnitude of murderous bitterness at the preacher’s rebuke would seem to suggest that the new relationship might have been more her ‘Project’ and the product of her meticulous scheming and seductions than of the lust or love of the new man in her life; that she, much more than the man, was the driver of the new romance, and John was not going to threaten her prized investments.  If you agree with me, we may further say, therefore, that Herodias was not only a supplanter but also a brutal seducer.

According to the American Tract Society Dictionary of the Bible, it was “at her instigation” that Antipas had gone in later years to Rome to ask the title of “King” over his province of Galilee.  There, before Emperor Caligula, he was accused of conspiracy by Herod Agrippa the brother of Herodias his wife. Antipas got banished, and Agrippa succeeded him.  Thus, according to history, we may also add to her many mischievous titles that of Instigator, Schemer, Manipulator.  She was a wrong influence on the life of her new husband, as well as the bringer of his woes, despite her attractive face and regal clouts.  Whoever judged Herodias by her outward charms was fatally fooled.

Herodias’ profile as Instigator and Manipulator was unmistakable in her schemes leading up to the decapitation of John the Baptist.  Only such a manipulator could have hijacked her husband’s happy birthday into her private gruesome party; only such a woman could have plotted out of the programme a cruel personal advantage to execute her private vengeance, unmindful of the reluctance of her husband and the feelings of his notable guests.  The world over, you may agree with me, not many wives would dare so far, no matter how bitter they might have felt.

I wonder how many of those respectable dignitaries remained to wine and dine at the royal tables after Herodias had been served her ‘special order’ of the prophet’s gory head in her lordly tray.  She had come to that party with her own ‘menu,’ and she was not one to care what others thought.

Let me ask, please, Would you have remained at that party after the prophet’s head was carried in, dripping fresh blood?  And if you remained out of protocol, could you have enjoyed your meals while John’s guiltless eyes glazed at you from Herodias’ vengeful tray?

What did Herodias do with that fresh head, with the young prophet’s unblinking eyes accusingly set in a deathly gaze at her?  Did she grill it?  Did she fry it?  Did she eat it raw as her birthday cake at that party?  She had seen the great preacher dead and his distressing wilderness voice silenced forever.  That was all that mattered to her.  It is said that she buried it.

3. Herodias the Jezebel 

As schemer and manipulator, Herodias reminds us of her Old Testament counterpart, Jezebel the wife of King Ahab, who plotted the death of Naboth by enlisting thuggish elders, false priests and false witnesses, on the pretext of a citywide holy fast.  She exploited the religious laws and sentiments of the people, calling prayers to a God she never served (1 Kings 21:7-13).  The New Testament Jezebel was also a conspicuously religious person, who used hifalutin high-profile religious activities as cover for her darkroom debasements and defilements of the noble clergy (Revelation 2:20).

One Bible passage well describes Jezebel’s evil influence on an otherwise good man: “No one else so completely sold himself to what was evil in the Lord’s sight as Ahab did under the INFLUENCE of his wife Jezebel (1 Kings 21:25, New Living Translation).  According to the King James Version, Ahab’s “wickedness” came from being “stirred up” by his wicked wife.  In 1 Kings 16:31, Jezebel is reported not only as a wrong political influence but also as a terrible religious influence.  She drove her husband and his kingdom into idolatry, away from the God of Israel towards her whorish Canaanite gods.

At Jezebel’s instigation, King Ahab killed Naboth to took over his vineyard (1 Kings 21:1-25); through her machinations, Elijah quickly fled from town at the conclusion of his fiery national revival on Mount Carmel.  Hating his righteous guts against her brazen idolatrous and sexual pollutions, she threatened to cut off his head, just as Herodias in the New Testament did to John the Baptist (1 Kings 19:1-5; Matthew 14:1-11).

Jezebel and Herodias were femme fatales who often went for the heads of holy men; wicked wives who hated anyone who did not sing their praise; proud women too noble to be corrected by ‘mere men,’ even if those were prophets of God; elevated women averse to holy rebukes; women who would rather be flattered than be corrected; women who would exploit religious occasions for their malicious purpose, who appear sometimes to be so religious as to call a fast, yet secretly hate the revival and revivalists that they pretend so outwardly to endorse.  Manipulators.

Bible students often draw close similarities between Jezebel and Herodias, for which Herodias is posited as the New Testament Jezebel, just as John the Baptist is taken to be Elijah (Matthew 11:14; 17:12-13).  When we note that both Jezebel and Herodias were princesses who became queens; that they each disliked the prophetic voices of their days and threatened the heads of the prominent preachers (1 Kings 19:1-3; 2 Kings 9:7; Mark 6:19); that each of those women manipulated their men and remotely controlled the thrones to their monstrous advantage; that they made bad men out of their otherwise good husbands (1 Kings 21:3, 27-29; Mark 6:20); that they each had a daughter who was their bloody accomplice or initiate (Matthew 14:8; 2 Chronicles 22:10-12); that they both thrived in sexual immorality (2 Kings 9:22; Revelation 2:20-22; Mark 6:17-18), we might agree with the proposition of Herodias as a New Testament Jezebel.

Who rejoiced and John’s death, angels or devils?  Whose agenda did Herodias serve by her domestic manipulations and the mindless murder of God’s greatest prophet?  God’s agenda or Satan’s?  If I guessed your answer right, and Herodias was Satan’s agent without the evident tag of witchcraft that Jezebel boldly bore (2 Kings 9:22), then I will be correct to say that not all witches carry the label, and we could be deceived if we looked out for Satan’s agents only from among those that carry his prominent badge.  The now New Jezebel is active at Thyatira’s noble pulpits, and her hearers and casualties are no mean men (Revelation 2:20).

4. Herod the Victim

16 When Herod heard about Jesus, he said, “John, the man I beheaded, has come back from the dead.” 

17 For Herod had sent soldiers to arrest and imprison John as a favor to Herodias. She had been his brother Philip’s wife, but Herod had married her. 18 John had been telling Herod, “It is against God’s law for you to marry your brother’s wife.” 19 So Herodias bore a grudge against John and wanted to kill him. But without Herod’s approval she was powerless, 20 for Herod respected John; and knowing that he was a good and holy man, he protected him. Herod was greatly disturbed whenever he talked with John, but even so, he liked to listen to him (Mark 6:16-20, New Living Translation). 

Herod’s alarmed reactions at the ‘breaking news’ about Jesus, his thoughts that Jesus could be the slain John the Baptist now raised from death, suggest many things.  Those unsettling emotions in Herod may suggest that

1. 1. Herod believed that John was a prophet of God
   2. Herod believed in the resurrection of the dead, and was therefore a ‘believer’ of sorts.  In Mark 8:15, Herod Antipas is mentioned in connection with the Pharisees who, unlike the Sadducees, believed in the resurrection of the dead.  Besides, the Herods were Idumeans (Edomites) who were descendants from Esau the brother of Jacob, both of which brothers were sons of Isaac and grandsons of Abraham.  The Edomites were thus related by blood, language and religion to the Jews, being largely Jewish in faith, at least from the second-century BC (Deuteronomy 23:7).  Herod the Great, the father of Antipas and Philip, repaired and decorated the Second Temple for several years, for which it is sometimes referred to as Herod’s Temple (Luke 21:5; John 2:20), and he consulted well with Jewish religious leaders (Matthew 2:3-4), but he sought to kill the baby Jesus, and died about the same year, in 4 BC, with the blood of infants on his hands (Matthew 2:16-18).
   3. Herod’s conscience had been haunting him since he ordered the decapitation of the prophet, which makes the further point that Herod had done it out of manipulated compulsion, against his inmost will, for _“Herod respected John”_ (v.20).  In other words, Herod Antipas otherwise had a more tender heart – at least towards John, and if it had not been for the wicked Herodias, he would not have done what he did.  If that be so, he was then the victim of a bad wife.

If Herod “liked to listen to him” even when John spoke uncomfortable truth to him, then it was not Herod who had a problem with what John preached on the subject of marriage; it was Herodias.  John’s message had been directed to Herod his fan – the man who loved to hear him, yet Herodias took it upon herself to respond.  To that extent, she was a woman who loved to put herself into matters that she was not invited into; a wife who put her impudent mouth into conversations between her husband and other respectable men, not minding the public embarrassment; a woman who usurped roles, who made her husband look like a weak man, who shamelessly picked a public fight with holier folks.

If truly “Herod respected John, knowing that he was a good and holy man,” and Herodias hated whom her husband so much respected, then she was a mindless divider who made enemies out of her husband’s friends, who blatantly saw things differently than her husband did, who was ready to kill whoever didn’t support her views, even if they were very highly respected prophets of God.  If Herod was saddened by the grisly choice that gladdened Herodias, then she was a woman who didn’t mind her husband’s feelings; a woman who would have her way at all costs, never minding how others felt, even if those ‘others’ were the new husband that she had announced she loved above other men.

Herodias hated the channels and speakers that were liked by the man she said she loved so much as to ‘sacrifice’ her former husband for.  If she said with her lips that she loved him much yet in her actions went the opposite path from him, will I be correct to say that she was a hypocrite; a liar whose words and emotions were never to be taken seriously?   Can I also say, therefore, that she was not a supporter but the controller and manipulator of her man?

Herodias had the name of Wife but played the roles of husband, subtly.  In her circles, she only allowed those she could use, whether they were kings or prophets or daughters.  She monitored and dispensed with anyone as quickly as they served her purpose no more.  That was her game; it was ingrained in her name.

John the Baptist was not the only preacher in town.  There were Scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees and leaders of the Temple.  Herodias had no issue with any of those other ‘preachers,’ as they never troubled her bubble.  Were they being fed from her table like the false prophets at the time of Jezebel?  We never know (1 Kings 18:4, 19; Proverbs 9:2).  She had no problem with those muted clergy so far as they looked away from her blatant abominations.  But if anyone dared to preach precepts to her, heads rolled.

How did Herod manage Herodias?  Did he put on public smiles to conceal his unspeakable woes?  Did she, like Jezebel’s males, emasculate him?  Might those castrations also explain why she had no child with Herod?  Might he have fled if he had the chance?  We never know, except that in the matter of John, he seemed to have been cornered meticulously against his choice by feminine deviousness.   Alas, his dilemma, in Mark 6:26:

• • “And the king was exceeding sorry; yet…” (KJV)
  • “…the king deeply regretted what he had said; but…” (New Living Translation)
  • “The king was greatly distressed, but …” (NIV)
  • “…the king was very sad …” (New Century Version)
  • “And the king was deeply pained and grieved and exceedingly sorry, but …” (Amplified)

About two Passovers later, Herod was in a similar situation with Jesus, as he had found himself with John the Baptist, the same rising preacher whom he had thought was the beheaded John the Baptist back from the dead.  This time, the forces urging him to the kill were the preacher’s own people; jealous Jews.  Herod was then visiting Jerusalem which was a province under the “jurisdiction” of Pontius Pilate.  Jesus had been arrested in Jerusalem and so was duly taken to the courts of Pilate.  When Pilate learned that Jesus was a Galilean, and the ruler of that province was then in Jerusalem, he ‘minuted’ Jesus to Herod, even though the two rulers had not been the best of friends.

There were three principal Roman government divisions of the Holy Land at the time of Jesus; they were Judea in the south with Jerusalem as capital, under the governance of Pontius Pilate; Galilee in the north under Herod Antipas, and Samaria in the middle, through which Jewish travelers passed on their way to the Jerusalem feasts if they wanted the shorter and more direct route (John 4:1-3; Luke 23:5).  The more conceited Jews however preferred the longer circuitous route, to avoid being defiled by the Samaritans whom they considered as ‘mongrels,’ as being hereditarily impure, because they were the products of Gentiles and Israelites during the exile of the ten tribes several centuries before under the Assyrians (2 Kings 17:24, 32-33; Ezra 4:1-3; John 4:3-4, 9; Luke 9:51-55).

Herod had been hearing about Jesus, and had been desiring to meet Him and see Him perform some miracles.  “And when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceeding glad” (Luke 23:8), but he was soon disappointed as Jesus was unprepared to put up the ‘miracles show’ that the ruler had sought.  Miracles were not for anybody’s entertainment.

Herod wouldn’t want another blood on his hands, it seemed, so he tossed Jesus back to Pilate, but not before he with his soldiers had mocked Him severely.  That day, both rulers became friends again.  So, Herod wasn’t such a good man after all, religious though he was, and Jesus became the healer of the sore relationship between those two hitherto bitter territorial enemies (Luke 23:1-12).

5. Herodias the Strategist 

Herodias would seem to be a woman who loved thrones and funfairs and parties with dignitaries.  Royal birthdays were a chance to make her indelible mark.  She manipulated everyone – daughters, husbands, dignitaries, to her wicked purpose.  She mindlessly prodded everyone on the path of her dark agenda.  Their reluctance never mattered.  Even when she didn’t speak out openly, she usually exploited the voices and the swords of those under and above her.  When the dancing daughter placed the order for John’s head, it was actually Herodias’ voice through the lips of the innocent child.

Herodias was not a woman to waste a chance for vengeance.  Forgiveness did not exist in her dictionary, and she didn’t seem to ‘bloody care’ what anybody thought of her ‘personal choices.’  She sometimes hid behind her children to do very bad things, putting bad words into their innocent mouths, bad thoughts into their young minds, weaving deathly snares out of their fanciful dances.  Everything and everyone had to serve her purpose or die.

21 A strategic day came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his lords and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee; 22 and when the daughter of Herodias herself came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his dinner guests; and the king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you want and I will give it to you.” 23 And he swore to her, “Whatever you ask of me, I will give it to you; up to half of my kingdom.” 24 And she went out and said to her mother, “What shall I ask for?” And she said, “The head of John the Baptist.” 25 Immediately she came in a hurry to the king and asked, saying, “I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.” 26 And although the king was very sorry, yet because of his oaths and because of his dinner guests, he was unwilling to refuse her. 27 Immediately the king sent an executioner and commanded him to bring back his head. And he went and had him beheaded in the prison, 28 and brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl; and the girl gave it to her mother (Mark 6:21-28, New American Standard Bible – Updated). 

The Gospel of Matthew provides an interesting perspective to the events by stating, “And she, being before instructed of her mother, said, Give me here John Baptist’s head in a charger” (Matthew 14:8).  If that girl had truly received ‘instructions’ from her mother ahead of the dance; if it is true that the dancer had acted according to Herodias’ secret script, then the dance was a set up.   For all we know, it could even have been the ‘supportive’ wife’s ‘bright’ idea to incorporate that dance as a little bit of ‘family fun’ in the birthday plans of ‘her husband.’  She might thereafter have prodded Herod to commit to giving an ‘award’ to the ‘best dancer’ at the party.  The trap was thus perfected, with Herod in limbo.  In his innocence, he might have assumed that he was being ‘integrative’ of the stepdaughter, but she and her mother were up to something else.  The two females had outsmarted the naïve king and maneuvered their noose around his protective seclusion of Pastor John.

6. Herodias the Stalker 

Herodias never publicly fought her husband to have her way, but she made sure that she tight-cornered him to still have her way.  She was the soundless lioness, crouching and stalking her targeted prey for long hours, until she got it at last.  She was patient in her cruelty and struck in very unexpected manners at very unexpected times.  John the Baptist was in prison for about a year.  Herodias the head-huntress crouched and waited.  The arrest seemed to have been Herod’s protective custody, to keep John from his familiar bloody Herodias, for “Herod respected John.”  Thus John, for a while, seemed out of her reach, even then she patiently awaited her chance, stalking the prey.  The many months did not soften her hard heart; the prophet’s pains in prison did not diminish her bitterness.  From her vantage lair, she ‘watched over’ the matter and the man.  Herodias was her game and her name.  It seemed to run in the blood.

7. Murder in the Blood 

Herodias’ grandfather is infamous in history as the king who had thrown a spear at baby Jesus, missing which, he had sent the sword against hapless helpless infants who were not his match in the bloody ring.  He “slew ALL the children that were in Bethlehem, and IN ALL THE COASTS thereof.”  His bloodiness knew no limits.  Mothers bewailed their sons in his reign (Matthew 2:16-18).

At the instigation of his sister Salome, according to history, Herod the Great put to death his wife Mariamne with her two sons whom he drowned in the palace pool, after accusing her of adultery.  To marry Mariamne, he had had to divorce Doris his first wife and banished her with his first son.  He had at least five consecutive wives.  Antipas his son must have acquired that gene from him in the matter with Philip and Herodias.  Grandpa Herod is recorded to have killed forty-five members of the Sanhedrin, hundreds of others suspected of plotting against him, and some rabbis and their students for tearing down the Roman eagle he had put up stubbornly at the Temple gate.  A man who would kill his own sons could not have blinked an eye at the tears for others’ sons slaughtered in their numbers.

As Herod approached his death, he threw his nobles into prison, ordering that they be murdered when he died, so that there would be wailing in the land – even if they would not be wailing for him.  That wish was however not fulfilled, and the stadium at Jericho which had been full of important people from around his land, to be killed at his expiration, didn’t drink the noble bloods for which it had gaped.

Herod Antipas, Herodias’ uncle and second husband, son of Herod the Great, was not a saint.  He had ordered John beheaded.  Sometime later, the Pharisees were to warn Jesus, “Get thee out, and depart hence: for Herod will kill thee,” and Jesus had called him a fox – a subtle, sly, vicious, cunning and mischievous prince (Luke 13:31-32).

Herod Agrippa 1 was a third generation from the Killer of Infants.  Herodias was his sister.  This Herod killed Apostle James and proceeded to extinguish Peter also, before the prayers of the Church intervened to frustrate his morbid design.  Unfortunately, like his grandpa, when his javelin missed Peter, he still would not let go.  Blood had to flow.  The soldiers on duty when Peter had been rescued by the angel all had to be killed (Acts 12:1-19).

Those Herods had a strange foundation that seemed to live on blood – especially the blood of prophets and saints.  That would seem to connect them to the mystery Babylon Woman of whom Apostle John speaks in the book of Revelation, “drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus … And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth” (Revelation 16:6; 17:6; 18:24).  If that be so, then the spirit of Babylon – the spirit of witchcraft, ruled that lineage.  It gave them thrones by which they were empowered to drink blood, precious bloods, but their royal lips never showed those gory stains.  Add to their bloodiness their infidelity and moral failings, and we would have drawn a complete circle back to Jezebel.  The engine that drove Herodias didn’t start with her. 

8. Herodias the Stalker

If Herod “liked to listen to him” despite John’s imprisonment, then the ruler may have been having private sessions with that preacher despite the incarceration, just as John’s disciples also had access to him during the period (Matthew 11:2-4).  The imprisonment, then, might have been Herod’s covert attempt to keep John from the malice of his wife, for “Herod respected John” and “he protected him” (Mark 6:20).  Matthew 14:5 would appear to suggest otherwise in stating that Herod could have killed John if it had not been for fear of the people.  If that were so, and if he had always wanted to kill that preacher, why would he feel sorry when he eventually had the chance to do what he had always wanted to do?  The resolution, for me, is in substituting Herod’s name for Herodias’ in that account.  In other words, Herodias might since have had her wish if Herod had not feared the reaction of the masses who took John the Baptist for their prophet.  In other words, the birthday party was not when Herodias began plotting her vengeance.  She had been seething from the first day that her new man seemed to take a liking to the unpleasant sermons of the queer wilderness prophet.

Herodias did not like John’s holy influence over her captured man.  She wouldn’t let him keep listening to that preacher’s enlightenments.  She would rather have John dead than preserved in prison. Her breasts lacked the milk of kindness – perhaps why she had only one child.  Instead, she carried the venom of the Serpent in the Eden of the palace of Herod Antipas.  Her royal polish was a cover for her deadliness.  Only the undiscerning was fooled who dotted on her selected selfies.

John the Baptist’s ministry started in about AD 27 (Luke 3:1-4), and he preached for about six months before Jesus came on the scene.  He preached for about another six months before he was arrested at the instance of Herodias somewhere around AD 28, and spent about eight months or a year in prison, until his execution in March of AD 29.  The long imprisonment of John did not satisfy Herodias.  She wanted him dead, and she stalked on.

9. The End of Herodias 

The Bible does not tell us how it ended for Herodias and her unfortunate consort, but history tells us that Herod Antipas lost a battle against his former father-in-law, which defeat was generally thought to be divine punishment for what he had done to John.  In AD 39, according to many records, he got banished to Gaul in Spain by the Emperor, in the ambitious circumstances reported earlier, as ‘instigated’ by his wife.  That was a second man crashed from his throne after meeting her.

Herodias is recorded to have gone with Herod and died in the same year.  She seemed to have bidden farewell to the world when there was no more throne to tag and ‘monitor’ into disaster, like the proverbial woman who married seven brothers that died consecutively after marrying her, and died herself only after the last of the brothers had also stupidly married her and himself died, and there was no more son in that lineage to marry and extinguish (Matthew 22:25-27).  Herod died after AD 39, but it is not known how.  The pair were of little consequence to history after AD 39, having been monitored and manipulated into oblivion by head-hunting dark forces.  Here ends my story of Herodias, the merciless macabre queen of Galilee.

10. Dealing with Herodias 

How do we deal with Herodias?  I guess that the fate of Jezebel in the Old Testament provides a spiritual paradigm on how to handle Herodias also, as Jezebel and Herodias are kindred spirits.  Jezebel fortified herself with men that she castrated – which is significantly ominous.  First step would be to command against her those captive eunuchs in ‘her army’ that she has castrated to guard her; commanding them to cast her down from the proud heights from where she looks down disdainfully on others; then call the dogs of judgment to devour her elegant flesh, according to the pronouncements by the mouth of the prophet (2 Kings 9:30-37).  In the New Testament, Jezebel has the options of mercy, refusing which she shall be faced with a bed of afflictions.  If she should still refuse to repent, then death upon herself, upon her polluted men, and upon her accomplice “children” – those seductive ‘party dancers’ (Revelation 2:20-23).

May God raise seeing Johns to expose her camouflages in the Church today, in case she will repent (Revelation 2: 20); may He raise kingly authorities to banish her from the land; may He send strong men to cast her disgracefully out from the ‘windows’ of the lofty and elegant houses where she has taken refuge, anointed Jehus to erase her memories from the land, and fierce dogs to finish her dainty flesh, in Jesus name.  Amen.

11. A Prayer 

O Lord, for those who have never known Herodias and her breed, “lead us not into temptation, but” for those already in her vice,  “deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.  Amen” (Matthew 6:13). 

From The Preacher’s diary
March 15, 2022.