Herod Dies - Acts 12:12-25

An angel has saved Peter from execution by rescuing him from a Roman prison and leading his out of the city. Peter probably didn’t have a “if I happen to not be executed” back up plan so he ends up going “to the house of Mary the mother of John, whose surname was Mark; where many were gathered together praying.” The IM suggests that this John Mark is the man who wrote the gospel of Mark. His mother’s name was Mary and she was “one of the leading women in the early Church in Jerusalem. Believers assembled at her home, and Peter returned there after being freed from prison.” Peter knocks on the gate outside to be let in and a young woman named Rhoda recognized his voice and told the people that Peter was there. The people didn’t believe her because he was supposed to be executed, but she insisted, so they went to the gate and saw Peter and was very surprised. Peter told them to keep their voices down, went into the house, told them of his escape, presumably packed a bag and took off. If he had stayed in this house, he would be endangering all the people there because they surely would have been arrested if they found a fugitive in Mary’s house.

In the morning, “there was no small stir among the soldiers, what was become of Peter.” This is where everyone realizes that Peter is gone and the guards know what is coming next for them, execution, and Herod has them immediately murdered. Herod leaves Judaea and goes to Caesarea where about a year later, he gets dressed up, “sat upon his throne, and made an oration unto (the people).” His people praised him as a god, “and immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory: and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost.” Just like the city of Ammonihah was destroyed after killing and expelling the saints from among them, Herod was not permitted to live after killing James. But it’s also important to point out that Ammonihah was not destroyed until a year later, and Herod did not die until about a year later. The IM says that Agrippa died the same year that he had James killed, and that “Luke saw Agrippa’s sudden death as divine retribution, administered by an angel of the Lord.”
The question that comes for me is, why did God apparently kill Herod, but not all the other secular rulers who killed the saints? But then I have to stop and ask myself, is that true? So those who kill and persecute the saints of God live carefree and happy lives? Surely not, and the logic that goes back is that if someone is willing to kill another person because of their religious beliefs, then they probably pissed off a lot of people and were going to end up dead sooner or later anyway. But Herod was not killed by man, he was killed by God, in front of his people, at exactly the moment when he otherwise would have considered him deity. It’s an interesting concept. Herod purported to be a follower of Judaism, yet he flaunted the rules whenever he felt like it, that is mockery of a special sort.
Even though James was dead and Peter was somewhere else, and the persecutions were probably intense, “the word of God grew and multiplied.” Saul and Barnabas came back from Jerusalem and set out again with “John, whose surname was Mark.” This is just another excellent example that God can do his own work, and does when he has to. That he allows us to come along for the ride is a major blessing.