Mark 6:14-29 — Herod's Table

FRANK EDWARDS: "You prepare a table before me." In Psalm 23 the LORD is a host who lays out a meal for his guest, and the guest is safe at it. Today Mark sets a very different table in front of us. A king prepares a banquet in his own honor, and one man pays for it with his life. Two hosts, two tables, and by the end of the story it is very clear which host David was singing about. LINDA BROWN: Welcome to Dig Deeper. I'm Linda Brown, here with Frank Edwards, and this is step ten of our sixteen steps through Psalm 23. Last time we stayed with verse five, where the shepherd becomes a host. Back on step three we also said Mark interrupts himself to tell a story while the Twelve are away on their mission, and that we would come back to it. This is that story. Mark chapter six, verses fourteen to twenty-nine. Now King Herod heard about this, for Jesus' name had become well known, and people were saying, "John the Baptist has risen from the dead! That is why miraculous powers are at work in him." Others were saying, "He is Elijah," and still others, "He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old." But when Herod heard this, he said, "John, whom I beheaded, has risen from the dead!" For Herod himself had ordered that John be arrested and bound and imprisoned, on account of his brother Philip's wife Herodias, whom Herod had married. For John had been telling Herod, "It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife!" So Herodias held a grudge against John and wanted to kill him. But she had been unable, because Herod feared John and protected him, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man. When he heard John's words, he was greatly perplexed; yet he listened to him gladly. On Herod's birthday, her opportunity arose. Herod held a banquet for his nobles and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee. When the daughter of Herodias came and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests, and the king said to the girl, "Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it to you." And he swore to her, "Whatever you ask of me, I will give you, up to half my kingdom!" Then she went out and asked her mother, "What should I request?" And her mother answered, "The head of John the Baptist." At once the girl hurried back to the king with her request: "I want you to give me the head of John the Baptist on a platter immediately." The king was consumed with sorrow, but because of his oaths and his guests, he did not want to refuse her. So without delay, the king commanded that John's head be brought in. He sent an executioner, who went and beheaded him in the prison. The man brought John's head on a platter and presented it to the girl, who gave it to her mother. When John's disciples heard about this, they came and took his body and placed it in a tomb. FRANK EDWARDS: Mark tells this as a flashback, prompted by Herod's guilty conscience. On step nine we heard that "prepare" in Psalm 23:5 is 'arach, a word for setting things out in order, used for laying bread on the table in the tabernacle and for armies drawn up in their lines. Keep that word in mind, because this whole story turns on a table that was carefully arranged, by the wrong host, for the wrong reasons. LINDA BROWN: Start with the host, then. Mark calls him "King Herod," but was he a king? FRANK EDWARDS: Never officially. This is Herod Antipas, a son of Herod the Great. When the father died, Rome divided the kingdom among his sons, and Antipas received Galilee and a region across the Jordan. Rome gave him a smaller title, and Luke 3 uses it: "Herod tetrarch of Galilee." Mark calls him king again and again, and many readers hear irony in it: a man who acts like a king at his own table and is ruled by everyone sitting at it. LINDA BROWN: The trouble begins with John's preaching. "It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife!" He was quoting the Law of Moses, wasn't he? Leviticus 18 says, "You must not have sexual relations with your brother's wife." FRANK EDWARDS: John said it more than once. The tense is "had been telling." Herodias had been married to Herod's half-brother, who was still alive, and Herod had divorced his own first wife to marry her. The Jewish historian Josephus also records that Herod killed John, at a fortress east of the Dead Sea. LINDA BROWN: Inside the palace, Herod's feelings about John are the strangest part. He feared him, protected him, and "listened to him gladly." FRANK EDWARDS: Perplexed is a word that means no way through. John's words left Herod nowhere to go. And gladly is the word Mark uses for the crowd in Jerusalem that "listened to Him with delight" when Jesus taught. Herod enjoyed the truth. He liked the sound of it from across the room. In John 5, Jesus said of the people who flocked to John, "you were willing for a season to bask in his light." That is Herod exactly. LINDA BROWN: Psalm 23:5 is written from the other side of that distance. "You prepare a table before me." The guest is not admiring the food from the doorway. FRANK EDWARDS: The guest sits down and eats. Isaiah 55 puts the same invitation to anyone who is hungry: "Why spend money on that which is not bread, and your labor on that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good." Herod listened. He never ate. And then Mark gives us Herod's own table: "On Herod's birthday, her opportunity arose. Herod held a banquet for his nobles and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee." LINDA BROWN: Mark gives the guest list in detail. Why does it matter who was invited? FRANK EDWARDS: The list tells you what the table was for. A birthday feast in his own honor, with the people whose good opinion kept him in power. Psalm 23 says the table is prepared "before me," literally in front of my face, for the guest. Herod's table was prepared for Herod. And Jesus describes this kind of guest list in Luke 14: "When you host a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or brothers or relatives or rich neighbors. Otherwise, they may invite you in return, and you will be repaid." Then he says, "invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind." LINDA BROWN: Banquets thrown by kings have a long history in Scripture, and most of them go badly. In Esther 1, the Persian king "held a feast for all his officials and servants." In Daniel 5, King Belshazzar "held a great feast for a thousand of his nobles." FRANK EDWARDS: Belshazzar's feast ends with writing on the wall, and Daniel 5 says, "That very night Belshazzar king of the Chaldeans was slain." A king's table in the Bible is often a dangerous place. Proverbs 23 warns, "When you sit down to dine with a ruler, consider carefully what is set before you," and then, "Do not crave his delicacies, for that food is deceptive." Herod's guests ate well that night. They also became the audience that trapped him. LINDA BROWN: The trap is his oath. The girl dances, she pleases him and his guests, and he swears, "Whatever you ask of me, I will give you, up to half my kingdom!" That is almost word for word the Persian king in Esther 7: "Even up to half the kingdom, it will be fulfilled." FRANK EDWARDS: The same promise at the same kind of table, with opposite results. In Esther, a king's promise over wine became the moment God's people were saved. In Mark, it becomes the moment God's prophet is killed. And a tetrarch under Rome had no kingdom to give half of. The boast was for the room. Jesus spoke of a very different king in Luke 12: "Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom." Herod offered half of something he did not own, to impress powerful men. The Father gives the kingdom gladly, to sheep. LINDA BROWN: Then the request, and Mark says, "The king was consumed with sorrow." He did not want to do it. FRANK EDWARDS: Consumed with sorrow is one Greek word, perilypos, grief that surrounds you on every side. Mark uses it only one other time, for Jesus in Gethsemane: "My soul is consumed with sorrow to the point of death." Two men overwhelmed with grief. Herod's grief gave way to his guests. Jesus' grief gave way to his Father's will, for the sake of his sheep. And listen to the reason Mark gives for Herod: "because of his oaths and his guests, he did not want to refuse her." The host of the banquet was ruled by the people at it. LINDA BROWN: That is the opposite of Psalm 23:5, isn't it? The very next words of the verse are "in the presence of my enemies," and the people watching that table have no say in it at all. FRANK EDWARDS: The LORD's table is not run by its audience. Nobody watching can change the menu, and nobody can talk the host into harming his guest. That is the next phrase, and we will spend all of next time on it. Herod's table did the reverse. The watchers decided, and the host gave up a man under his own protection. Psalm 69 has a line that fits him: "May their table become a snare; may it be a retribution and a trap." Paul quotes it in Romans 11. Herod's own banquet became the snare that caught him. LINDA BROWN: And the platter. John's head brought into a dinner party on a serving dish. Mark does not soften it. FRANK EDWARDS: Mark tells it plainly, and the plainness is the horror. The prophet's head comes in like the next course. Ezekiel had seen rulers like this. In Ezekiel 34, the chapter we heard on step three, God says, "Woe to the shepherds of Israel, who only feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed their flock?" Herod fed himself and his guests, and a righteous man's life was the price of the evening. LINDA BROWN: Ezekiel's answer to those shepherds was a promise of a better one. "I will appoint over them one shepherd, My servant David, and he will feed them." FRANK EDWARDS: Mark puts that answer straight after this story. The Twelve come back, Jesus takes them to a remote place, and he sees a crowd "like sheep without a shepherd." We read it on steps three and five: he sat them down on the green grass and fed every one of them. One host feeds himself and a prophet dies. The other feeds the flock, and twelve baskets are left over. That is the table of Psalm 23:5, set by the Shepherd who becomes the host. LINDA BROWN: You said the word "prepare" runs through this story. Does it show up in Mark itself? FRANK EDWARDS: In the Greek translation of the psalms that most early Christians read, "You prepare a table before me" uses the verb hetoimazo. Mark opens his Gospel with that same verb in Isaiah's words about John: "Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him." John's whole life was preparing. He prepared the way for the Host, and he was killed at a table Herod prepared for himself. In Mark 14 the disciples ask, "Where do You want us to prepare for You to eat the Passover?" That is next time's table. LINDA BROWN: John's death also points ahead to Jesus' own death, doesn't it? FRANK EDWARDS: Jesus says so in Mark 9: "Elijah has indeed come, and they have done to him whatever they wished." Another ruler would one day know what was right and do the opposite to please the people in front of him. Mark 15: "And wishing to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them." But there is a difference that matters for the psalm. Herod sacrificed another man's life to save his own face. Jesus gave up his own life so that his guests would be safe. That is why the table of Psalm 23 can be trusted. The Host has already paid for it. LINDA BROWN: The story ends quietly. "When John's disciples heard about this, they came and took his body and placed it in a tomb." Matthew 11 records Jesus' verdict on him: "among those born of women there has risen no one greater than John the Baptist." FRANK EDWARDS: Placed it in a tomb are the same words Mark uses for Joseph of Arimathea and the body of Jesus. Two bodies, two tombs, and only one was found empty. Herod feared that John had risen. Mark's Gospel ends with the angel saying of Jesus, "He has risen! He is not here!" And Psalm 116 says, "Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His saints." John was the price of Herod's evening. To God he was precious. LINDA BROWN: Isaiah 25 describes a banquet that ends the other way from Herod's. "On this mountain the LORD of Hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all the peoples," and "He will swallow up death forever." FRANK EDWARDS: Herod's banquet served up a death. The LORD's banquet swallows death. Psalm 23:5 begins with one host and one guest, and Isaiah widens the table to all the peoples. Jesus said in Matthew 8 that "many will come from the east and the west to share the banquet with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven." A prophet killed at Herod's table will not be missing from that one. Hear the reason Herod gave, and then the psalm. "Because of his oaths and his guests, he did not want to refuse her." You prepare a table before me. [long pause] LINDA BROWN: For a way to take this into an ordinary week, the Apply This Today section in the app picks it up. Next time, Mark chapter fourteen and the Last Supper, where Jesus shares his table with the friend who will betray him, and the next words of verse five: in the presence of my enemies. FRANK EDWARDS: Dig Deeper is a free app, and you can find it at dig deeper dot A I. LINDA BROWN: Thanks for listening, and for staying with a hard story today.