After demonstrating his loyalty to the new Roman ruler Marc Antony (a member of the Second Triumvirate and the recipient of the eastern provinces, which included Judah), the senate placed direct control over Judah into Herod’s hands. To strengthen his position, they titled him rex socius et amicus populi Romani (allied king and friend of the Roman people). Still, it would take three years after receiving Roman recognition (and countless Jewish deaths) for Herod to be firmly installed as king over the country. One of the darkest periods in Jewish history would soon commence; the Temple’s destruction was now within clear sight.
Herod ruled as king of Judah for thirty-two stormy years, until his death in 4 BCE. Upon assuming power, he had swiftly seized complete control of the government and instilled terror in the hearts of the masses. Not one to forget an adversary, he ordered forty-five of the sages who had sat at his trial put to death, removing all valuables from their bodies as they were brought to burial. Many other sages were killed as well. The remaining sages were paralyzed from even contemplating future action against the tyrant. Hostile action, they felt, would only result in further atrocities and bloodshed.
Despite Herod’s consolidation of power, his fearful paranoia, which included concern over uprisings or even civil war, was ever present. He surrounded himself with armed guards and brought in mercenary soldiers to subdue the populace. He also employed informers whose task it was to identify any dissident movements before they erupted into outright rebellion. Those arrested were tortured. Often Herod himself would move incognito among the people to measure their attitude toward him and his government. Such underhanded activity added an additional degree of uncertainty and distress to the people’s lives.
Not surprisingly, Herod found his primary support among the Sadducees. They were indifferent to the king’s tainted ancestry and encouraged him to create a purely political Jewish state, completely independent of any religious underpinnings. With his brutal action against the sages, Herod took one major step in that direction. He later went even further, auctioning off the high priesthood to the highest, but typically unqualified, bidder. By cheapening the position, he hoped to further diminish any spiritual influence on Judah’s political sphere.
Underlying Herod’s attack against the religious establishment was a deeper struggle between Hellenistic paganism and Judaism. More than a century after the Maccabean uprising, Hellenism still dominated much of Judah as the foreign population of Greeks and Hellenized Syrians had grown considerably in size and influence. The Jews began to feel like strangers in their own land. Herod, himself an avowed Hellenist, catered directly to that population.
Herod was extremely popular with his gentile subjects. He established many elaborate Greek cities,including Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast, which became the largest port city in the country. He also built many theaters and hippodromes to advance pagan culture in the land. Even outside the country he erected magnificent public buildings. For these and other projects he was affectionately named “the Great.”
The Jews viewed these undertakings in a completely different light. A large portion of the huge sums Herod used for these elaborate projects came from his Jewish subjects, yet they were not his beneficiaries. He refused to expend resources to improve Jewish municipalities. Before Herod’s ascension to power, the Jews had benefited from a robust economy. By the time he was done squeezing them of their financial assets, both during their lifetimes and after death, they were impoverished and broken.
Into this desperate state of affairs stepped the great sage Hillel.
Hillel was everything Herod was not. He was calm, kind, patient, and caring, with a true interest in the spiritual as well as the physical well-being of the nation. Hillel encouraged the people to remain detached from political affairs. Focusing on Torah, he said, was the only way to survive under such difficult conditions. The hearts of his generation rallied around him. He, not the Idumean tyrant, was their true leader.
