Tyrants in any age exercise their power in similar ways: violence, as we saw yesterday; or the control of vital supplies – in this case food. In the end, most oppressors overreach themselves. Excessive pride and arrogance become the source of their downfall. Here it is seen in theological terms. Herod receives the adulation of the people, usurps the place of God, and God steps in. The downfall of any oppressor has similar logic. God is the ruler of the nations, the King of kings. He has the ultimate authority, and he will have the last word. We may not see it now. We may, like the saints in Revelation 6:10, cry out, ‘How long, Sovereign Lord?’ But we can be confident that the time will come when God will reign in justice.

As we struggle with the tension of knowing that God has won the final victory, but that we do not yet see it completely, we can be encouraged by these verses. The Word of God continued to spread. Many of us may live in places where we feel that the church is in decline and may be discouraged. Even there we can find signs of hope, and if we look at the world situation we shall find even more reason to see that, now as then, God’s purposes will be accomplished.

Enable us, Lord, to recognise the challenge of this strange text to our broken world.

The contrast between the description of Herod at the end of our previous reading, callously ordering the execution of sixteen guards as though their lives counted for nothing, and this account of his sudden and humiliating death is very striking. The incident in Caesarea highlights both the terrible social and economic consequences of tyranny and oppression, and the insane hubris of rulers who exercise absolute power and believe their own propaganda.

In the dispute between Herod and the people of Tyre and Sidon, the issue seems to have been economic – specifically the region’s food supply. Luke implies that the Herodian system had created a structure of dependency, in which these people were driven to pleading with their ruler for the basic necessities of life. They had found an intermediary, Blastus, who secured them an audience. The description shows the dominating nature of absolute power and the humiliation and subservience it inflicts upon poor and hungry people. Not only so, but when Herod deigns to appear in person, the crowd responds with cries of adulation and a display of loyalty which they know to be the precondition for their very survival. 

We should not read this story as though it concerns ancient history and is remote from our realities in the twenty-first century. Millions of people across the world today suffer deprivation and hunger, finding themselves locked into economic systems that condemn them to dependency and the need to beg for aid and support. That being so, the nature of Herod’s demise should give us pause for thought! Unjust political systems, whether led by tyrannical individuals or justified by elaborate ideological theories, are contrary to the will of God and counter to his Word, which ‘continued to spread and flourish’ (v 24). The daily reading of the Bible remains a potentially subversive activity!

Give thanks that the Word of God continues to ‘spread and flourish’.