Solitude. Matthew 14.

Read Matthew 14 online here.

Although it grieved the king, because of his oath and the dinner guests he commanded it to be given.

So he sent and had John beheaded in the prison. His head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, and she brought it to her mother. Then John’s disciples came and took the body and buried it and went and told Jesus.(Matthew 14:9-12)

The name Herod is the English transliteration of the Greek word Herodes, which means "heroic". How much farther could one man be from that description? In chapter 14, the Herod is Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great, who was the king the magi met -- the one who had the young male children of Bethlehem killed, out of fear of the prophesied king of the Jews. Antipas' wife was Herodias, and as John pointed out, she was the former wife of Herod's brother, Herod Philip. To make matters worse, she was the niece of these two brothers.

In this brief scene, we catch a glimpse of the level of decadence of this "royal" family. Herod wanted John dead, but was too weak to just do it. His wife, however, nursed her desire for revenge, and seized the opportunity when it arose. And it arose when she used her daughter as a dancer at Herod's birthday banquet. It wasn't a tap dance. Using her daughter in this fashion was as cold and cruel an action as she could take, unseemly for the wife of the tetrarch, and unloving as a mother. And Herod's refusal to backtrack on his oath, was as cowardly as Herodias' cruelty, and as unloving towards their daughter as hers.*

I was struck by the word oath in verse 9. Jesus had taught about oaths in his talk on the hill in chapter 5. "Don't make oaths," he said. "Let your 'yes' be 'yes,' and your 'no' be 'no.'" What else had he said about righteousness? Murderous thoughts were to be considered equivalent to murder. Lusting after another woman equivalent to adultery. Marriage not to be idly cast aside. And oaths. Wow, it's all there in this one family, in these 12 brief verses.

And John, who pointed it out regularly, paid with his life.

There's value in those teachings of Jesus. If there was any doubt as to their truth, this very real, very ugly incident erased that doubt.

But I really want to move on to what happened next. In verse 12 Matthew says that John's disciples came and took the body and buried it, and then went to tell Jesus. John's disciples remained loyal to the prophet, while recognizing that Jesus was the one to turn to at John's death. That's a poignant, moving expression of the power of God in John. And if you aren't moved to tears in reading that, take the next verse.

"Now when Jesus heard this he went away from there privately in a boat to an isolated place." (v.14:13)

What a profound moment.

Stay there a while.


Jesus couldn't. The crowds found him out. And he had compassion on them. And after the miraculous feeding ...

"Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other side, while he dispersed the crowds. And after he sent the crowds away, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone." (v.14:22-23)

He needed that time to think, to grieve, to talk with his Father, to be alone and quiet.

Stay there a while.

Jesus was able to spend most of that night praying. Until it was time to rescue his followers.

Romano Antoniazzo
c. 1485

*It's possible that the daughter was already corrupted by the household and a willing participant, but the text treats her neutrally.