EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/18/2026
8:26 PM
My
Worship Time Focus:
“HISTORICAL
BACKGROUND”
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference: Luke
1:5a
Message of the verse: “In
the days of Herod, king of Judea,
We will be talking about Herod in this SD. Herod (Herod I or the Great) is the
first and is the best known of the Herod family that is mentioned in the New
Testament as the others are Antipas (Luke 3:1; cf. Matt. 14:1-2; Luke 23:7-12),
Philip [Luke 3:1], Archelaus [Matthew 2:22], Agrippa I [Acts 12], and Agrippa
II [Acts 25:13; 26:1 ff.]). Now I am not
at this time going to quote all of these verses about all of these men, but can
say that there is not a good one in the bunch.
I heard a story a long time ago that
kind of goes along with what I just said about these men. The story, if I remember came from Chicago
and there was a very rich family who had two brothers in it and one of them
died. The surviving brother wanted to
have a proper service for his brother and went to a fairly famous Pastor to ask
if he would be willing to do the funeral.
The Pastor really did not want to do the funeral because he really did
not anything good to say about this man.
The living brother said that he had to say something good about his
brother which made the Pastor even less willing to do it. He relented and the day of the funeral this
Pastor began to say a great deal of really awful things that this man had done,
but at the end of his message the Pastor said that this dead brother was really
a good man compared to his living brother.
Hope you like the humor in this true story.
Now Herod’s father, Antipater, had
supported Julius Caesar, even risking his life for him during the latter’s war
with Pompey, so in gratitude, Caesar made Antipater governor of Judea. Antipater in turn appointed Herod who was
then only 25 years old governor of Galilee.
Herod immediately gained favor with both the Galilean Jews and also the
Roman officials by killing a notorious bandit leader and many of his
followers. Now after his father’s death
Herod, having fled to Rome to escape a Parthian invasion of Palestine, was
declared king of Judea by Octavian and Antony which had to be approved
by the Senate, which was done in 40B.C.
With the aid of the Romans, Herod drove the Parthians out of Palestine
and established his kingdom becoming undisputed ruler in the year 37 B. C.
John MacArthur writes: “Herod was not a Jew, but an Idumean
(Edomite). Since the Edomites
(descendants of Esau) were traditional enemies of Israel (Num. 20:14-21; 1
Kings 11:14-22; 2 Kings 14:7; 2 Chron. 25:5-16; Ps. 137:7; cf. Jer. 49:7-22;
Ezek. 25:12-14; 35:15; Amos 1:11-12; Obad. 1-21), Herod felt the need to
ingratiate himself with the Jewish people.
He married Mariamne, a member of the prestigious and wealthy Jewish
Hasmonean family, which had ruled Israel during much of the intertestamental
period. He also utilized all of his
considerable diplomatic, oratorical, and administrative skills to increase his
standing with the Jews. Herod conducted
a vast public works program, highlighted by the rebuilding of the temple (still
ongoing during Jesus’ ministry), and the construction of the port city of
Caesarea. He also revived the city of
Samaria and built the remarkable and virtually impregnable fortress of Masada. He showed favor toward the people by twice
lowering their taxes, and during the severe famine of 25 B.C Herod even melted
down gold objects from his palace to buy food for the poor. He was so popular with some Jews that they
formed the pro-Herod party called the Herodians (Matt. 22:16; Mark 3:6;
12:13). Like the Pharisees and the Sadducees,
the Herodians were enemies of Jesus (Mark 12:13).”
Now I guess you could say that these
were that good things however in spite of these positive achievements, there
was a dark side of Herod. This man could
be ruthless, vicious, and merciless, and was incredibly jealous and paranoid,
constantly afraid that someone would come along to usurp his power. His cruelty and bloodthirstiness manifested
itself, among other things, in the murder of his wife, her brother, her mother,
and several of his own sons. Now his barbaric
savagery reached a horrifying low point in the slaughter of the innocents
(Matt. 2:16-18), which was motivated by his fear that one “born king of the
Jews” (Matt. 2:2) would supplant him.
Now as Luke’s narrative opened, Herod’s long reign was ending.
(Matt. 2:16-18)
“16 ¶ Then Herod, when he saw that he had been
tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male
children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under,
according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. 17 Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the
prophet Jeremiah: 18 “A voice was heard
in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she
refused to be comforted, because they are no more.’”
(Matt. 2:2)
“2 saying, “Where is he who has been born king of
the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.’”
MacArthur concludes this section: “Having laid out the historical background,
Luke turned his attention to Zacharias.
He portrayed his personal righteousness, his priestly responsibility,
his faithless response to prophetic revelation, and the divine reproof for his
unbelieving response.”
I guess I have my assignment for the
next few days.
2/18/2026
9:04 PM
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