King Herod’s Massacre and the Biblical Lesson against Tyranny

D ecember 28 in the Christian calendar marks the Feast of the Holy Innocents — remembering King Herod’s slaughter of all male children age two or under in Bethlehem and the surrounding region, as relayed in the Gospel of Matthew. Herod’s slaughter is an attempt to kill the newborn Jesus, fearing the baby could grow into a future ruler able to threaten his authority.

The story of Herod’s atrocity displays essential theological truths. We see that evil forces will oppress the innocent to stop God’s kingdom from coming. We witness how these attempts fail, despite the extreme lengths taken. For their part, the murdered children have long been celebrated as the first Christian martyrs.

This biblical episode also contains an important political teaching. Through Herod, we see a succinct and vivid picture of a tyrant, and the essence of his tyranny resides in his acting like a god.

God displays perfect wisdom (Psalm 147:5). Herod believes himself godlike on this front. We remember the famed wise men on their journey following the star that eventually rests over Bethlehem. Herod meets with them, finding out when the star appeared and asking them to divulge to him the child’s location so that Herod can go and worship the new, future king. In making this request, Herod certainly had no intention of paying homage. He sought the information to capture and kill the infant Jesus. But Herod thought himself clever in so enlisting the wise men and outsmarting any alternative to his rule. We can see how deeply Herod held this self-understanding by his reaction when the wise men do not fall for his plan. He does not calmly turn to the general massacre as a necessary “Plan B.” He “became furious,” Matthew’s Gospel records, when “tricked” by the wise men, who leave their presents of gold, frankincense, and myrrh with Joseph, Mary, and Jesus, and then quietly escape without speaking again to Herod. This trickery revealed Herod as not actually godlike in his cleverness but subject to the free choices of other men.

Moreover, just as God holds infinite power (Isaiah 14:27, Jeremiah 32:17), Herod believes himself godlike in this way, too. His decree to kill the male children in Bethlehem and the surrounding region doesn’t merely spring from the wise men’s defiance. Scripture makes clear that Herod knew the Micah 5 prophesy that foretold Bethlehem as the place where “shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel.” Herod believed he could nullify that prophecy by murdering the future monarch in His infancy. He believed he was not subject to God and His control of human history, and that, instead, he could control his own future and that of his kingdom.

Herod’s reaction to the old prophecy reveals another element of tyranny as well. God is eternal, having always been and the One who always will be. Scholars believe Herod to have reigned for more than 30 years at the time Jesus was born. As such, any newborn king would not reach the age to rule until Herod was very old. Yet he saw the young Jesus as a threat to his rule. On the one hand, this could show the hubris that he might live, if not forever, then well beyond normal human years. On the other, he could have worried about his dynasty, wishing to assure that he passed his crown down for generations to come. Either way, he sought an immortality to his rule that only God can rightly claim.

Finally, we know that God is the perfect manifestation of justice. Justice is defined ultimately by the character and resulting will of God as manifested in His laws, His words, and His deeds (Deuteronomy 32:4, Psalm 89:14). Tyrants such as Herod make themselves into gods by defining justice according to their character and will, not God’s. God’s demands of justice include protecting the innocent by restraining and punishing the wicked (Jeremiah 22:3, Romans 13:1-7).

Herod’s “justice” murders the innocent to protect the wicked, namely himself. In his vile hatred for the most defenseless of his subjects, he shows contempt for the God who created them.

This Feast of the Holy Innocents, let us be perceptive, watchful, and thankful. Let us perceive the qualities separating good rule from tyranny. Good rulers must understand that their rule comes from God. Let us watch, lest we fall under tyranny unawares or allow our innocent neighbors, especially children, to suffer the same. And, let us be thankful that, despite the depth and breadth of Herod’s evil strivings, Herod’s tyranny failed. The King of Kings lived, and died in His appointed time, only to rise again in triumph over the tyranny of sin and death as well as their manifestation in wicked rulers. Let us rest in the truth that all tyranny will eventually fail, no matter how powerful it might seem at this moment. Evil has not a lasting word, much less the last.