Josephus gives a pretty interesting biographical account of Herod the Great – the man who was King in Judea when Jesus was born.

Few people realize that Herod’s reign – and the coming of Messiah during his reign – were actually prophesied in the book of Daniel. We’ll get to that in a moment.

The longest story about Herod from the New Testament is found in Matthew chapter 2 – which is often read during the Christmas season. In the biblical account, we see that Herod, as king was so jealous of any potential usurpers to his throne that he murdered hundreds of babies to kill Jesus.

Not only was Herod trying to kill a mere usurper to his throne, he was in fact intentionally, and specifically trying to kill the Messiah: the rightful King of Israel as established by God. He actually consulted the priests of the temple to determine where it was prophesied that Messiah would be born so that he could find and kill him (Matt 2:3 & 4).

Herod the Great was the first New Testament type of the antichrist.

In ‘Wars of the Jews’, the historian Josephus gives us some interesting information about Herod.

Prior to becoming King in Judea, Herod was essentially a Roman style warlord. In fact, he was actually close friends with many Roman Generals, and with the emperor, himself. (In fact it was under Herod’s reign that several locations in Palestine1 were given Roman names – for instance Caesarea (mentioned several times in the New Testament) was a region literally named after Caesar by Herod the Great.)

Herod had been given permission by the Roman Emperor to conquer Jerusalem and make himself King in Judea.

With the help of other Roman Generals, he did that very thing; once Jerusalem had been conquered, the Romans began to utterly destroy the city and massacre all its inhabitants – but Herod intervened and begged them to stop – how could he reign as king over a city which had been completely destroyed? In the end he had to pay them substantial sums of money, but they left destroying the city and gave it to him.

In the course of his conquests, Herod had developed a cult of followers who believed that he was the Messiah.

Interestingly, Herod – like Donald Trump – seemed to miraculously survive attempts on his life (don’t get me wrong, I’m not comparing Trump to Herod).

When he militarily conquered Jerusalem to reign as king, and intervened on behalf of the city and its inhabitants this gave further credence to the Messianic view of Herod the Great.

What’s more, once Herod had established himself as king of Judea he set about the task of restoring the temple, which had been badly damaged in the battle of his conquest, and in preceding wars. Herod put so much money and labor into reconstructing the temple that it was considered more glorious than the temples that preceded it: more that Solomon’s temple, more than the rebuilt temple after the Babylonian exile.

The temple that stood in Jesus day – as built by Herod the Great – was larger and more splendid than the temple had ever been in history.

Of course, all of this gave more and more credence to the faith of the Herodians.

Yet Herod, in all of his zeal for Jerusalem, and the temple expressly and intentionally tried to kill the True Messiah.

Herod believed that Messiah would be in competition with him as the political ruler of Judea. As a counterfeit Messiah, Herod’s perspective was entirely earthly and carnal. He did not understand that Jesus’ Kingdom – the True Israel – was spiritual, not earthly.

Let’s consider for a moment the words of Christ, just before he actually was killed. At this point, Jesus is brought before Pilate, the earthly Roman leader in the area.

John 18:33-37
Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again, and called Jesus, and said unto him, Art thou the King of the Jews?

…

36 Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.

37 Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.

Regarding this phenomenon He also said:

Luke 17:20-21
And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:

21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

Jesus had no interest in being an earthly king. His kingdom is the kingdom of heaven. He would not have had any interest in usurping Herod, anyways because His coming was about establishing the Kingdom of God, and the heavenly tabernacle, not the earthly.

The faith of the Herodians was no more or less than what is called today in modern times ‘Zionism’: the belief that a neo-political movement and military conquest of ‘the holy land,’ and the construction of the temple will usher in the Kingdom of God on earth.

Jesus was Messiah.

Herod was antichrist.

At the beginning of this post, I mentioned that Daniel prophesied of Herod & Christ’s coming during his reign.

In Daniel 2, Daniel explains Nebuchadnezzars’ dream – in the dream he had seen a statue made of several different metals. Danile explained that each section of the statue represented a different empire, the fourth kingdom was made of iron – this is accepted historically to represent the Roman empire.

The feet of the statue, however, were made partly of iron, partly of clay. The nation of Israel is prophetically referred to as clay (Is. 64:8; Jer. 18:6).

According to Daniel, it was in the time of this last kingdom of iron and clay that Messiah would come.

Herod’s kingdom was the perfect mingling of Rome and Israel, clay and iron, and Messiah did indeed come during his reign as according to the prophecy of Daniel.

The church of our day has become filled with Herodians, and Donald Trump is listening to them. Almost all of his cabinet picks are Herodians.

If I could tell Donald Trump just one thing, it would be the words of Christ:

Mark 8:15
And he charged them, saying, Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of Herod.

I believe that Donald Trump was chosen by God for this hour. I also believe that he is a man, and not perfect; the cause of Christ when He came was not to become an earthly king, nor to reign in an earthly city, but to bear witness of the Truth (John 18:37). Pray Trump becomes a man of the truth and hears His voice.

What Herod failed to understand was that his earthly kingdom was a counterfeit; his earthly temple was a counterfeit, and that he was a counterfeit Messiah.

Make no mistake – the bible prophesies the coming of antichrist.

The alliance between America and Israel is but iron and clay.

Heb 13:14
For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.

  1. Some have said that the name ‘Palestine’ was invented by Romans, but the Jews called the land Palestine before they got to it (Exodus 15:4); and Isaiah called it Palestine when he prophesied to the land regarding the last days: Isa 14:29
    Rejoice not thou, whole Palestina, because the rod of him that smote thee is broken: for out of the serpent’s root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent. ↩︎