John the Baptist

135:12.1As John was work­ing in south­ern Perea when ar­rested, he was taken im­me­di­ately to the prison of the fortress of Machaerus, where he was in­car­cer­ated un­til his ex­e­cu­tion. Herod ruled over Perea as well as Gal­i­lee, and he main­tained res­i­dence at this time at both Ju­lias and Machaerus in Perea. In Gal­i­lee the of­fi­cial res­i­dence had been moved from Sep­pho­ris to the new cap­i­tal at Tiberias.

135:12.2Herod feared to re­lease John lest he in­sti­gate re­bel­lion. He feared to put him to death lest the mul­ti­tude riot in the cap­i­tal, for thou­sands of Pere­ans be­lieved that John was a holy man, a prophet. There­fore Herod kept the Nazarite preacher in prison, not know­ing what else to do with him. Sev­eral times John had been be­fore Herod, but never would he agree ei­ther to leave the do­mains of Herod or to re­frain from all pub­lic ac­tiv­i­ties if he were re­leased. And this new ag­i­ta­tion con­cern­ing Je­sus of Naz­a­reth, which was steadily in­creas­ing, ad­mon­ished Herod that it was no time to turn John loose. Be­sides, John was also a vic­tim of the in­tense and bit­ter ha­tred of Hero­dias, Herod’s un­law­ful wife.

135:12.3On nu­mer­ous oc­ca­sions Herod talked with John about the king­dom of heaven, and while some­times se­ri­ously im­pressed with his mes­sage, he was afraid to re­lease him from prison.

135:12.4Since much build­ing was still go­ing on at Tiberias, Herod spent con­sid­er­able time at his Perean res­i­dences, and he was par­tial to the fortress of Machaerus. It was a mat­ter of sev­eral years be­fore all the pub­lic build­ings and the of­fi­cial res­i­dence at Tiberias were fully com­pleted.

135:12.5In cel­e­bra­tion of his birth­day Herod made a great feast in the Machaerian palace for his chief of­fi­cers and other men high in the coun­cils of the gov­ern­ment of Gal­i­lee and Perea. Since Hero­dias had failed to bring about John’s death by di­rect ap­peal to Herod, she now set her­self to the task of hav­ing John put to death by cun­ning plan­ning.

135:12.6In the course of the evening’s fes­tiv­i­ties and en­ter­tain­ment, Hero­dias pre­sented her daugh­ter to dance be­fore the ban­queters. Herod was very much pleased with the damsel’s per­for­mance and, call­ing her be­fore him, said: “You are charm­ing. I am much pleased with you. Ask me on this my birth­day for what­ever you de­sire, and I will give it to you, even to the half of my king­dom.” And Herod did all this while well un­der the in­flu­ence of his many wines. The young lady drew aside and in­quired of her mother what she should ask of Herod. Hero­dias said, “Go to Herod and ask for the head of John the Bap­tist.” And the young woman, re­turn­ing to the ban­quet ta­ble, said to Herod, “I re­quest that you forth­with give me the head of John the Bap­tist on a plat­ter.”

135:12.7Herod was filled with fear and sor­row, but be­cause of his oath and be­cause of all those who sat at meat with him, he would not deny the re­quest. And Herod An­tipas sent a sol­dier, com­mand­ing him to bring the head of John. So was John that night be­headed in the prison, the sol­dier bring­ing the head of the prophet on a plat­ter and pre­sent­ing it to the young woman at the rear of the ban­quet hall. And the damsel gave the plat­ter to her mother. When John’s dis­ci­ples heard of this, they came to the prison for the body of John, and af­ter lay­ing it in a tomb, they went and told Je­sus.