What happened To "Harod the Great", his wife and Step-daughter Following the Beheading of John the Baptist ?

"Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap."

The beheading of “John the Baptist” was such a sad and miserable event it grabbed me as if by the neck and I found myself needing to know more.

Have you ever wondered what happened to Harod, his second wife and the step daughter that danced for him and so enthralled him that he would promise her anything?

As we know, this promise cost John the Baptist his head, as the request from his step daughter was his head on a charger.

In a simplified version, the cast of characters in this event can be distilled down to these 4 :

Harod , Herodias, The daughter, Salome, John the Baptist, and Aretas, powerful king of the Petrean Arabians.

First of all when the entire dinner party was presented with the gruesome spectacle of John’s head and it was handed to Harod’s wife, What did Herodias do with John's head?

According to church tradition, after the execution, his disciples buried his body at Sebaste, but Herodias, vengeful even beyond his death, took his severed head and buried it in a dung heap.

Herod’s second wife hated John because John advised Herod that his divorce from his first wife and marriage to his former sister-in-law, while his brother Philip was still alive, was a sin. Herod was upset by this as he feared John the Baptist. His imagination spun wildly and he had convinced himself that John has risen from the dead and had huge powers. Never-the-less John was imprisoned at the behest Herodias, who was determined to diminish John in the eyes of Harod, and subsequently beheaded this prophet, requested, through her daughter. But what happened in the lives of Herodias (the 2nd wife), Salome (the stepped daughter who danced for Harod), and Harod who gave the order to behead John.

A crucial piece to this puzzle happens to lay with his first wife, whom he illegally divorced. She was the daughter of Aretas, king of the Petrean ( pat re on) Arabians.

Aretas viewed Harod’s behaviour as an act of war for he felt that his daughter had been dishonourably used by Harod.

Aretas (Ar et us) had also condemned the beheading of John the Baptist and described it as “ the slaughter of a most righteous man.” Harod’s armies were viciously destroyed and Herod with Herodias (Her od ias ) were banished to Lyons, then to Spain. The daughter, Salome chooses to go with them.

While in Gaul Harod was accused of being a traitor to Rome and therefore they had to flee for their lives; push beyond the Roman Empire to take refuge in Spain. Gaul was a region of Western Europe first described by the Romans. It was inhabited by Celtic tribes, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg, Belgium, most of Switzerland, and parts of Northern Italy, Netherlands, and Germany, particularly the west bank of the Rhine. It covered an area of 494,000 km.. The only safe place that Harod could go was to Spain. His life ruined and in complete shambles, his power taken the already physically sick Harod, pressed forward to Spain.

Aretas (Ar et us) as he viewed the his conquest, formally the empire controlled by Harod uttered as is recorded..

“Wherefore the just vengeance of God burned against all who were concerned in this crime.” This would be the crimes against his daughter , crimes against the state and crimes against God’s law.

Destroyed and in exile Harod dies in Spain. His death was an appropriate one. He was a ruthless man who died a miserable death. More than 2,000 years after “Herod the Great” succumbed at age 69, doctors have now settled on exactly what killed the king of ancient Judea: chronic kidney disease complicated by a very uncomfortable case of maggot-infested gangrene of the genitals.

What about the young, beautiful daughter Salome? That same year, as Salome was passing over a frozen river, the ice broke and she sank in up to her neck and died according to reports preserved from antiquity. The description of her death continues:

Moreover, the head of the dancing daughter was cut off by means of ice. Hear what a Greek witness reports:

“As she was journeying once in the winter-time, and a frozen river had to be crossed on foot, the ice broke beneath her, not without the providence of God. Straightway she sank down up to her neck. This made her dance and wriggle about with all the lower parts of her body, not on land, but in the water. Her wicked head was glazed with ice, and at length severed from her body by the sharp edges, not of iron, but of the frozen water. Thus in the very ice she displayed the dance of death, and furnished a spectacle to all who beheld it, which brought to mind what she had done.

As for Herodias her death was recorded but little more. In her lust for the power of a king she was in a strange land, alone, with nothing. Everything had been taken from her in her last days …Her scorn and rage against a humble prophet of God had been avenged.

Cornelius À Lapide. The Great Commentary. chapter 6.

I would like to conclude with a passage from Galatians 6 NKJV -

“Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.

And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.”

Amen …