Matthew 14:1-11 At that time Herod the tetrarch heard of the fame of Jesus,… A man will give himself up to the gallows twenty years after the treacherous stroke. Nero was haunted by the ghost of his mother, whom he had put to death. Caligula suffered from want of sleep — he was haunted by the faces of his murdered victims. We can still see the corridors recently excavated on the Palatine Hill. We can walk under the vaulted passages where his assassins met him. "Often weary with lying awake," writes Suetonius, "sometimes he sat up in bed, at others walked in the longest porticos about the house, looking out for the approach of day." You may see the very spot where his assassins waited for him round the corner. Domitian had those long wails cased with clear agate. The mark of the slabs may still be seen. The agate reflected as in a glass any figure that might be concealed round an angle, so that a surprise was impossible. It is said that Theodoric, after ordering the decapitation of Lysimachus, was haunted in the middle of his feasts by the spectre of a gory head upon a charger. And how often must a nobler head than that of Lysimachus have haunted a more ignoble prince than Theodoric as he sat at meat and muttered shudderingly aside, "It is John whom I beheaded!" (H. R. Haweis.) Parallel Verses KJV: At that time Herod the tetrarch heard of the fame of Jesus,WEB: At that time, Herod the tetrarch heard the report concerning Jesus, |
    |