Coin of Herod Archelaus

The Division of Herod's Kingdom:

Archelaus received the kingdom of Judea by the last will of his father, though a previous will had bequeathed it to his brother Antipas. He was proclaimed king by the army, but declined to assume the title until he had submitted his claims to Caesar Augustus in Rome. Before setting out, he quelled with the utmost cruelty a sedition of the Pharisees, slaying nearly three thousand of them. In Rome he was opposed by Antipas and by many of the Jews, who feared his cruelty; but in 4 BC Augustus allotted to him the greater part of the kingdom (Samaria, Judea, and Idumea) with the title of ethnarch until 6 AD when Judaea was brought under direct Roman rule (see Census of Quirinius).

He married Glaphyra, the widow of his brother Alexander, though his wife and her second husband, Juba, king of Mauretania, were alive. This violation of the Mosaic law along with Archelaus' continued cruelty roused the ire of the Jews, who complained to Augustus. Archelaus was deposed in the year 6 and banished to Vienne in Gaul; Samaria, Judea, and Idumea became the Roman province of Iudaea.

In the Bible, Archelaus is mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew. According to Matthew 2:13-23, Joseph, Mary and Jesus fled to Egypt to avoid the Massacre of the Innocents. When Herod the Great died, Joseph was told by an angel in a dream to return to Israel (presumably to Bethlehem). However, upon hearing that Archelaus had succeeded his father as ruler of Judaea he "was afraid to go thither" (Matthew 2:22), and was again notified in a dream to go to Galilee. This is Matthew's explanation of why Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judaea but grew up in Nazareth.

The beginning and conclusion of Christ's Parable of the minas in the Gospel of Luke may refer to Archelaus's journey to Rome, in that Jesus' parables and preaching often made use of events familiar to the people as examples for bringing his spiritual lessons to life:

"A nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return?But his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, 'We do not want this man to reign over us.'? 'But as for these enemies of mine,' [said the nobleman] 'who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me.'" (Luke 19:12, 14, 27 ESV)

References

External links

• Resources > Second Temple and Talmudic Era > Herod and the Herodian Dynasty: The Jewish History Resource Center - Project of the Dinur Center for Research in Jewish History, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• King Herod Archelaus
• Jewish Encyclopedia: Archelaus

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