Herod the Great was one of the most talented and terrifying rulers of the ancient world. An Idumaean by birth (a descendant of Esau), he was not a Jew by ethnicity but converted to Judaism. Rome appointed him "King of the Jews" in 37 BC, and he ruled with a combination of administrative brilliance and homicidal paranoia for 33 years. His building projects were breathtaking: he expanded the Jerusalem temple into one of the architectural wonders of the ancient world; he built the fortress of Masada, the port city of Caesarea, and palaces throughout his kingdom. But his reign was also a reign of terror. He murdered his favorite wife Mariamne, three of his own sons, his mother-in-law, his brother-in-law, and countless courtiers who threatened his throne. Caesar Augustus reportedly quipped that it was safer to be Herod's pig than his son (since, as a nominal Jew, he would not kill a pig). Matthew 2 places Herod at the center of the nativity story. Wise men from the East came to Jerusalem asking, "Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East" (Matthew 2:2). Herod was "troubled, and all Jerusalem with him." He consulted the chief priests and scribes, learned the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, and sent the wise men to find the child "that I may come and worship Him also" — a lie from start to finish. When the wise men, warned in a dream, returned to their country another way, Herod exploded. "He was exceedingly angry; and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under" (Matthew 2:16). Joseph, warned in a dream, had already taken Mary and the infant Jesus to Egypt. Herod died shortly after, in 4 BC — eaten by worms according to Josephus, a gruesome end. But he stands at the opening of the New Testament as a warning: threatened kings murder children. The threatened king in Matthew 2 foreshadows the greater threat that every worldly power feels in the presence of the true King.