HEROD THE GREAT.

Herod was a Roman client king of Judea, referred to as the Herodian kingdom. He has been described as a madman who murdered his own family and a great many teachers of the law, and as the evil genius of the Judean nation, prepared to commit any crime in order to gratify his unbounded ambition, and as the greatest builder in Jewish history. He is known for his colossal building projects through out Judea, including his expansion of the Second Temple in Jerusalem (Herod's Temple), the construction of the port at Caesarea Maritima, the fortress at Masada and Herodium.
Herod was born 74 BC in Idumea, South of Judea. Edom and Idumea are two related but distinct terms relating to a historical contiguous population, but two separate, if adjacent, territories occupied at different periods of their history by the Edomites/Idumeans. The Edomites first established a biblical kingdom (Edom) in the Southern area of modern Jordan, and later migrated into Southern parts of the Kindom of Judah (Idumea, or modern Southern Israel/Negeb) when Judah was first weakened, then destroyed by the Babylonians in the 6th century BC.
The hebrew word "Edom" means "Red,"and is derived from the name of its original founder Esau, the elder son of the hebrew patriarch Isaac, because he was born "red all over."Later as a young adult, he ate "red pottage,"selling his firstborn rights to his brother Jacob, because he was hungry and did not care about the spiritual value of it.
The Edomites' original country, according to the Bible stretched from the Sinai peninsula as far as Kadesh Barnea. Southward it reached as far as Eilat, which was the seaport of Edom. On the North of Edom was the territory of Moab. The ancient capital of Edom was Bozrah. Esau's descendants settled in this land after displacing the Horites. It was also called the land of Seir; Mount Seir strongly identified with them as a cultic site. The national god was Qaus (Qaush, Kaush, Kaus, Kos, Qaws). The letters of its name is invoked in the blessing formula and appears in personal names found in ancient Edom. Costobarus, appointed by Herod to be governor of Idumea and Gaza, was descended from the priests of the god Qaus, the god of the Idumeans.
The Hebrew word translated as leader of a clan is "Aluf," used solely to describe the Dukes of Edom and Moab, in the first 5 books of Moses. Then beginning in the books of the later prophets the word is used to describe Judean generals, for example, in the prophecies of Zechariah twice (9:7, 12:5-6) it evolved to describe Jewish captains, then the word is also used multiple times as a general term for teacher or guide for exmple in Psalm 55:13. Today it is used for a description of high rank in the Israeli Defence Force, and as a surname.
Herod was the second son of Antipater the Idumean, a high-ranked official under the governor of the district Hyrcanus II, and Cypros, a Nabatean. Herod's father was by descent an Edomite whose ancestors had converted to Judaism. Herod was raised as a Jew.
A loyal supporter of Hyrcanus II, Antipater appointed his son 'governor of Galilee' in 47 BC, when Herod was 25 or 28 years old. His elder brother, Phasael, was appointed governor of Jerusalem. Herod enjoyed the backing of Rome, but his brutality was condemned by the court of judges appointed in the Land of Israel.
In 41 BC, Herod and his brother Phasael, were named as tetrarchs by the Roman leader Mark Antony. They were placed in this role to support Hyrcanus II. Later, the Hasmonean Antigonus, Hyrcanus' nephew, took the throne from his uncle with the help of the Parthians. Herod fled to Rome to plead with the Romans to restore Hyrcanus to power.
The Romans had a special interest in Judea because their general Pompey the Great had conquered Jerusalem in 63 BC, thus placing the region in the Roman sphere of influence. Judea had been ruled autonomously by the Hasmonean kings from 140 BC until 63 BC.
In Rome, Herod was unexpectedly appointed King of the Jews by the Roman Senate. Herod went back to Judea to win his kingdom from Antigonus. Toward the end of the campaign against Antigonus, Herod married the granddaughter of Hyrcanus II, Mariamne, who was also a niece of Antigonus. Herod did this in an attempt to secure his claim to the throne and gain some Jewish favor. However, Herod already had a wife, Doris, and a young son, Antipater, and chose therefore to banish Doris and her child.
After 3 years of conflict, Herod and the Romans finally captured Jerusalem and Herod sent Antigonus for execution to Marc Antony. Herod took the role as sole ruler of Judea and the title of "Basileus (King) for himself, ushering in the Herodian Dynasty and ending the Hasmonean Dynasty. Herod ruled under Roman overlordship until his death in 4 BC for 37 years, 34 of them after capturing Jerusalem.
As Herod's family were converts to Judaism, his religious commitment was questioned by some elements of Jewish society. When John Hyrcanus conquered the region of Idumea in 140-130 BC, he required all Idumeans to obey Jewish law or to leave; most Iduemeans thus converted to Judaism, which meant that they had to be circumcised, and many intermarried with the Jews and adopted their customs. While Herod publicly identified himself as a Jew and was considered as such by some, this religious identification was undermined by the decadent lifestyle of the Herodians. Herod later executed several members of his own family, including his wife Mariamne.
Herod's despotic rule has been demonstrated by many of his security measures aimed at suppressing the contempt of the people towards him. He used secret police to monitor and report the feelings of the general populace towards him. He prohibited protests, and had his opponents removed by force. He had a bodyguard of 2,000 soldiers made of Thracians, Celtics and Germanic contingents most from influential Jewish families. Thracians had served in the Jewish armies since the Hasmonean dynasty, while the Celtic were former bodyguards of Cleopatra given as a gift by Augustus to Herod following the Battle of Actium. The Germanics were modeled upon Augustus's personal bodyguard, responsible for guarding the palace.
Herod's religious policies gained a mixed response from the Jewish populace. Although Herod considered himself king of the Jews, he let it be known that he also represented the non-Jews living in Judea, spending building temples for other religions outside of the Jewish areas of his kingdom. He also introduced foreign forms of entertainment, and erected a golden eagle at the entrance of the Temple Mount (Second Temple), Herod most famous and ambitious project, which suggested a greater interest in the welfare of Rome than of Jews. He employed 1,000 priests as masons and carpenters in the rebuilding. He spent lavish sums on his various building projects and generous gifts to other kingdoms, including Rome. In order to fund these expenses, Herod utilized a Hasmonean taxation system that
 weighed heavily on the Judean people. Such lavish spending upset his jewish subjects.
The two major sects during his reign, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, both showed opposition to Herod. The Pharisees were angry because Herod disregarded many of their demands for the Temple's construction. At the same time the Sadducees, who were known for their priestly responsibilities in the Temple, opposed Herod because he replaced their high priests with outsiders from Babylonia and Alexandria, in an effort to gain support from the Jewish Diaspora. These efforts proved ineffective, and at the end of Herod's reign, anger and dissatisfaction were common amongst Jews. Heavy outbreaks of violence and riots followed Herod's death in many cities, including Jerusalem, as all the built-up grievances against him were unleashed. The momentum from these revolts led to an increased demand for Jewish freedom from Roman rule. Herod's leadership caused enough anger for it to become a prime cause of the Great Revolt of 70 CE.
Herod appears in the Gospel according to Matthew (2:1-23), which describes an event known as the Massacre of the Innocents. After the birth of Jesus, some astrologers from the East visited Herod to inquire the whereabouts of "the one having been born king of the Jews,"because they had seen his star in the East and therefore wanted to pay him homage. Herod, as king of the Jews was alarmed at the prospect of a usurper. Herod assembled the chief priests and scribes of the people and asked them were the "Anointed One" was to be born. They answered, in Bethlehem, citing Micah 5:2. Herod therefore sent the astrologers to Bethlehem, instructing them to search for the child and, after they had found him, to "report to me, so I too may go and worship him." However, they have found Jesus, they were warned in a dream not to report back to Herod. Similarly, Joseph the husband of Mary was warned in a dream that Herod intended to kill Jesus, so he and his family fled to Egypt. When Herod realized he had been outwitted, he gave orders to kill all boys of the age of two and under in Bethlehem and its vicinity. Joseph and his family stayed in Egypt until Herod's death, then moved to Nazareth in Galilee to avoid living under Herod's son Archelaus.
Herod died in Jericho at the end of March or early April in 4 BC, after a lunar eclipse. There were a total of three other total eclipses around that time. Herod's final illness was excruciating. His cause of death was a chronic kidney disease complicated by gangrene. Similar symptoms accompanied the death
 of his grandson Agrippa I in 44 CE. Herod suffered throughout his lifetime from depression and paranoia. After Herod's death, his kingdom was divided among 3 of his sons by Augustus. The Romans made Herod's son, Herod Archelaus, governor of Judea, Samaria, and Idumea from 4 to 6 BC, referred to as the tetrarchy of Judea. Archelaus was judged incompetent by the Roman emperor Augustus, who then combined the very same provinces (Samaria, Judea, Idumea) into Iudaea province under rule of a prefect until the year 41. As to Herod's other sons, Herod Antipas was tetrarch of Galilee from 4-39 CE and Philip became tetrarch of territories East of the Jordan.