Matthew 11:16-19 ~ actions

Holy Family, painted by Bartoleme Esteban Perez Murillo

Matthew 11:16-19

16 "To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:

17 " 'We played the pipe for you,
and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge,
and you did not mourn.'

18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon.' 19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.' But wisdom is proved right by her actions."

~ Wisdom is proved by her actions ... does this mean God helps those who help themselves??

All of Israel waited for the Messiah... when will He be here... why then was Herod (the Great) not eating & drinking in celebration? How did Israel get itself into the situation of a Jewish King of Israel not wanting a Messiah? Kings of Israel are sometimes terrible kings, but the Herods were biblically some of the worst. What is the kink in this history?

(Lots of Herod kings - read or not at your pleasure) (The Herodian Dynasty of Roman Iudaea Province: Herod the Great (c. 74-4 BC), reconstructed the Second Temple - killed his family - Bethlehem massacre, Herod Archelaus (23 BC-c. AD 18) of Samaria, Judea, and Idumea, Herod Antipas (20 BC-c. AD 40) of Galilee and Peraea, ordered John the Baptist's death and as mocking Jesus, Herod Agrippa I (c. 10 BC-AD 44) king of Judea, called "Herod" in the Acts of the Apostles. Herod II, sometimes called Herod Philip I, Herod Philip II (4 BC-AD 34), tetrarch of Ituraea and Trachonitis. Herod III, king of Chalcis (AD 41-48), Herod Agrippa II (AD 27-100), tetrarch of Chalcis also described in Acts of the Apostles as "King Agrippa" sat before Paul of Tarsus. )

The kink in the Herod dynasty... great actions begin this dynasty starting with Hannukah. This Jewish history comes straight from (the first Christian council approving the 80 books of the bible - The Council of Nicea-) the Book of Maccabees II. There is not any doubt this is historically accurate. Yes, this history is written in the Dead Sea Scrolls and approved by the only Christian church in 343 A.D.

(Action 1) 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4

3 Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for (that day will not come) until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. 4 He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God.

Action 1 This desocration is the reason the prophets at the end of the Old Testament were so intense about injustice: Israel had problems with false gods and false sacrifices on the hills of Israel, but this was getting closer with the rise in strength of evil - allowing it into the area used as the temple and exalted as the main practice of worship.

Hannukah is about action 2. Hannukah celebrates Mattathias and, his son, Judah Maccabee being the only men brave enough to stop Jews, having a false High Priest, have Hellenic sacrifices in the temple. False Jews had already allowed a statue of Zeus to be placed in The Temple. Israel would not see the Temple desocrated without trouble. The false High Priest had already outlawed true Jewish sacrifices.

(Action 3) The line of King David is interupted & (4) Samaritan Herod the Great married a descendant Maccabee princess, Mariamne, and had the last male Maccabee heir drowned in his Jericho palace (Action 5). This probably is why the Scriptures are no longer directly recording Herods rise to power, even if he was the great (re-) builder of the 2nd Temple.

~ Wisdom is proved by her actions. Herod the Great certainly lived by that motto, he rode to power on the approach of the Roman Empire. Appointed King of the Jews by the Roman Senate (action 6) - changed sides, married politically (7), murdered a descendent of a hero of Israel, put priests in only at his own pleasure (8), and ultimately murdered Mariamne (9). Financially, Herod was a great King of Israel - building the 2nd Temple (10), Caesaria (11), and transitioning Roman prosperity into Israel. But the Lord sees the soul and Wisdom comes from the Lord. Walking the tightrope of pleasing Rome and builder of the Temple of God took its toil on Herod the Great. Herod not only murdered his wife, he murdered 3 of his sons (12,13,14) (God abhors child sacrifice) and almost murdered his brother. Murdered small male babies in the tiny town of Bethlehem in the attempt to murder the Messiah (15).

The Historian Josephus records Herod "never stopped avenging and punishing every day those who had chosen to be of the party of his enemies." Josephus provides more clues about Herod's tomb which he calls Herod's monuments:

"So they threw down all the hedges and walls which the inhabitants had made about their gardens and groves of trees, and cut down all the fruit trees that lay between them and the wall of the city, and filled up all the hollow places and the chasms, and demolished the rocky precipices with iron instruments; and thereby made all the place level from Scopus to Herod's monuments, which adjoined to the pool called the Serpent's Pool."

On May 7, 2007, an Israeli team of archaeologists of the Hebrew University led by Netzer, announced they had discovered Herod's tomb. The site is located at the exact location given by Josephus, but after 2,000 years, no body was discovered.

The Holy Family had the action of listening to God & having peace:

Luke 2:13-15
An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. "Get up," he said, "take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him." So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called my son."

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