Death of Herod Agrippa

Act_12:20-24
There was great consternation in the prison
the next morning, when it was found that
Peter was absent. It would seem as if the
guard had been thrown into a deep sleep,
seeing that they had not been awakened by
any of the circumstances that occurred; for
had they been cognizant of them, but
passive through terror, they would not have
been so much surprised as soon as it was
day. Herod was in much wrath when he
heard that, notwithstanding the precautions
he had directed to be taken, the apostle had
disappeared. He caused a diligent search to
be made for him; and when no trace of him
could be found, he examined the soldiers;
and finding that they could not, or, as he
perhaps supposed, would not, throw any
light on the matter, he ordered that they
should be put to death. It was in ancient
times very generally regarded as a capital
offence for those to whose charge a prisoner
was entrusted to suffer him to escape; and it
must have seemed clear that in this case the
guards had either slept upon their post, or
had been consenting parties to the escape.
Herod was probably the more induced to
enforce this penalty, for the purpose of
conveying the impression that the soldiers
had aided in the escape of Peter.
Herod then proceeded to Caesarea, which
had become the political metropolis of the
country since the great works and public
buildings which his grandfather had
founded there. Soon after his arrival, a
grand commemoration was held in honor of
the emperor. The precise occasion we do
not know. Some suppose it was in honor of
his birth-day; others that it was to celebrate
his return from Britain. There was, on this
occasion, a large concourse of the great and
noble to Caesarea; and the theater, built by
the elder Herod, must have presented a
splendid appearance when the stone seats,
rising tier above tier in the open air, were
lined with persons arrayed in the gorgeous
vestures of the East. Here the usual games
were celebrated, such as gladiatorial
combats and the like. Herod Agrippa had
contracted at Rome a taste for these savage
sports, and had introduced them into
Judea. Josephus mentions, that on one
occasion he had, at Berytus, given no fewer
than seven hundred pairs of men to fight in
these mortal combats; thus, as the historian
approvingly remarks, using up his
malefactors in such a manner that, by the
very act of getting rid of them, he made
them subservient to the pleasure of the
people. The stricter Jews, however, had a
creditable dislike to these sports. But there
were many more accommodating in this
respect; and in such places as Caesarea,
where a very large proportion, if not a
majority, of the inhabitants were Greeks,
there never was want of spectators to fill the
theater.
On the second day Herod appeared in the
theater, attired with extraordinary
splendor, as it was his intention, before the
games of the day commenced, to give
audience to ambassadors from Tyre and
Sidon. These anciently renowned and still
thriving cities were not in the kings own
territory, but enjoyed some share of
independence under the Romans. As their
domains were small, and all their attention
was given to manufactures and commerce,
they depended almost entirely upon
Herods territory for the requisite supplies
of corn and other agricultural produce, their
country being in fact, as the sacred
historian remarks, nourished by the kings
country. It was therefore of the utmost
importance to them that they should be on
good terms with him. But they had, from
some cause or other, incurred his deep
displeasure; and to put an end to the evils
thus threatened or incurred, they repaired
to Caesarea, where having first of all made
Blastus, the kings chamberlain, their
friend, doubtless by means of a handsome
douceur, for that has always been the way of
the East, they succeeded in obtaining a
public audience, and of composing their
difference with him.
Josephus informs us that the kings dress
on this day was of silver tissue, which shone
most effulgently in the morning sun. This
effulgence was probably heightened by
numerous splendid jewels. At this day, as in
ancient days, the kings of Persia appoint,
for the reception of ambassadors, such an
hour as, according to the season or the
situation of the intended room of audience,
will best enable them to display in full
sunshine the dazzling brilliancy of their
jeweled dresses; and it is on record, that the
title, He was of resplendent raiment, was
added to the name of one monarch,
because, on some high festival, his regal
ornaments, glittering in the suns rays, so
dazzled the eyes of the beholders, that they
could scarcely endure the refulgence, and
some courtiers professed their inability to
distinguish between the person of the
monarch and the great luminary of the day.
Arrayed in such royal attire, Herod took
his place upon his high seat in the theater.
He proceeded to make a speech, probably in
the matter of the Tyrian embassy; and just
as he concluded, the rays of the morning
sun played upon his dress, and gave to his
person a most dazzling appearance. Upon
this, the heathen courtiers, of whom there
were many present, and probable the
Tyrian ambassadors prominently, raised a
shout, hailing him as a god! This idea was
not unfamiliar to the heathen mind. In the
Greek mythology we read of many mortals
raised to divinities after their death. Among
the Greek kingdoms of the East it was also
not unusual for a sovereign to cause divine
honors to be rendered to his predecessor;
and among the Romans nearly all the
emperors were thus deified, as well as many
of their wives and female relatives. There
are medals extant commemorating the
names of sixty persons who received the
honors of deification between the times of
Julius Caesar and Constantine the Great,
when the custom ceased. There are also
sculptures symbolizing the fact of
deification, or representing its ceremonies.
In the British Museum there is a curious
sculptured tablet, representing the
apotheosis of Homer. For persons to receive
divine honors during life was less common,
but not absolutely rare. Very lately we saw
Caligula claiming worship as a god;
formerly Mark Antony had assumed in
Egypt the character of Osiris. Alexander the
Great had also affected to be a god; and the
Scripture history records the fact, that
Darius was prevailed upon to be a god for a
month (Dan_6:7). Indeed, the manner in
which Herod Agrippa accepted this profane
adulation, reminds one of the poets
description of Alexander under the like
circumstances
A present deity! they shout around:
A present deity! the vaulted roofs
rebound.
With ravished ears
The monarch hears,
Assumes the god,
 Affects the nod,
And seems to shake the spheres.
In like manner the King of Judea accepted
this homage, or at least did not repel it,
though, as a Jew, he ought to have repelled
it with horror and indignation. Of all who
ever accepted such adulation, none was so
guilty as Herod; for he knew the truththat
there was but one God, the creator of
heaven and earth; and that he was a very
jealous God, and would not give his glory to
another. Of this he was instantly reminded,
for immediately the angel of God smote
him, because he gave not God the glory. It
may be that the rays of the sun, which by
shining upon his raiment, did, in
conjunction with the eloquent beneficence
of his speech, call forth this blasphemous
adulation, were, in the shape of a sun-
stroke, made the appropriate instrument of
his punishment. He was seized with horrid
torments in the intestines; and he who had
just been greeted as a god, was borne forth,
in all his splendid raiment, amid groans,
and cries, and tears, declaring that he had
received the death-stroke, and
acknowledging the hand of God in his
punishment. He survived five days in
extreme torture, being eaten of worms,
and then died of that horrid and loathsome
death, which, as we formerly showed, Note:
Evening Series: Thirty-First WeekSunday.
has so peculiarly been the doom of
tyrannous persecutors and blasphemers, as
if to show what weapons the Lord had
reserved with which to bring down into the
very dust the loftiness of the most proud.
We have combined, in this account of
Herods death, the statements of St. Luke
and of Josephus. There is a remarkable
agreement between them, although Luke, in
his more concise statement, omits some
circumstances which Josephus, in his more
full account, supplies, and which fit very
well into the shorter narrative. Thus both
agree that his disease was of the intestines;
but Josephus says nothing of the worms,
while Luke, as a physician, naturally notices
the cause as well as the fact of the tortures
Herod endured. Both also agree that the
real cause of his death was his acceptance of
divine honors; for although Josephus was
tender of the memory of this king, and gives
a more favorable character of him than is
warranted by the facts he records, he was
too good a Jew to suppress or disguise this
circumstance, which, indeed was
acknowledged by Herods own conscience,
and was known to all the people.
Still Herod was not, as times went, a bad
ruler; and in the apprehension that a worse
condition of affairs might ensue, his demise
was deeply lamented by his subjects. The
Christians, however, had no cause to
deplore his death; and it must not escape
remark, that the sacred historian, after
recording that Herod gave up the ghost,
emphatically adds, But the word of God
grew and multiplied.