The tyrant Herod had reigned about thirty-three years, when his court was startled by the tidings of the arrival of sages from the East, who had received from a heavenly sign notice of the birth of a mighty Ruler. “Where is He that is born King of the Jews?” was the anxious question of the pious travellers; “for we have seen His star in the east, and have come to worship Him.”
[Illustration: THE WISE MEN BEFORE HEROD.]
The monarch of Judea well knew that the expectation of his people was eagerly fixed upon the coming of the Messiah; he must also have known that prophecy pointed towards this time for the Holy One’s appearance. The conduct of the tyrant showed that in the mysterious babe, born at Bethlehem, he dreaded a rival. He sought information of the sages regarding the child, that he might quench in blood this dawning light of Israel. Being frustrated by the secret return of the sages to their own land, Herod determined to make sure of his horrible object by a more sweeping act of cruelty. He sent forth and slew all the children in Bethlehem and in the neighbouring coasts, from two years old and under, ruthlessly tearing the innocent little ones from the arms of their agonized mothers, and filling the land with the lamentations of parents weeping over their slaughtered offspring.
But it is in vain for man to fight against the decrees of God. An angel had appeared in a dream to Joseph, the babe’s reputed father, and warned him to flee into Egypt with the Virgin Mary, and her infant son. Thus every babe in Bethlehem was slain by the cruelty of Herod, save the one whose life he aimed at—the only one whom he cared to destroy.
Sickness of Herod—Bold Exploit—Attempt at Suicide—Barbarous Command—Death of Herod—Judea Reduced to a Province—Devoted Courage of the Jews.
The measure of the tyrant’s iniquities was now nearly full; the earth was not much longer to endure the presence of this monster of cruelty. Herod, as Antiochus Epiphanes had been before him, was struck by the hand of an avenging God with a most strange and horrible disease. The proud king became a loathsome object to all who approached him; he was consumed with inward pain, worn by incurable melancholy, tortured by unappeasable hunger, and scarcely able to breathe.