THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT.
CHAPTER XIV.
DEATH OF HEROD.
Sickness of Herod—Bold Exploit—Attempt at Suicide—Barbarous Command—Death of Herod—Judea Reduced to a Province—Devoted Courage of the Jews.
The measure of the tyrant’s iniquities was now nearly full; the earth was not much longer to endure the presence of this monster of cruelty. Herod, as [Antiochus Epiphanes] had been before him, was struck by the hand of an avenging God with a most strange and horrible disease. The proud king became a loathsome object to all who approached him; he was consumed with inward pain, worn by incurable melancholy, tortured by unappeasable hunger, and scarcely able to breathe.
While his sickness was slowly but surely bringing Herod the Great to the tomb, an event occurred which proved that the old heroic spirit of the Jews was not quenched, and that there were those amongst them who could not patiently endure the hated yoke of the Romans.