Section 9:7–9
Herod was confused by the reports about Jesus
Herod the governor heard about the amazing things that Jesus and his apostles were doing. However, Herod did not know what that implied about the kind of person that Jesus was. People said that Jesus was a prophet who had become alive again (9:19), but they could not decide which prophet he was. Some people thought that Jesus was John the Baptizer. Herod had caused John to be executed, and he was confused about who Jesus was and how he got his power.
Some other headings for this section are:
Herod’s confusion about Jesus
-or-
Herod was worried
There are parallel passages for this section in Matthew 14:1–12 and Mark 6:14–29.
Paragraph 9:7–9
9:7a
When: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as When introduces a change of topic in this story. It does not refer to present time. Some English versions do not translate this word here. Some other ways to introduce the topic are:
When Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee, heard about everything Jesus was doing (New Living Translation (2004))
-or-
Herod, the governor, heard about all the things that were happening (New Century Version)
Herod: This Herod was Herod Antipas. His father was Herod the Great.
the tetrarch: A tetrarch was the ruler or governor of a fourth part of a kingdom. When Herod the Great died, Caesar divided the land that he ruled. Caesar appointed some of Herod’s sons to rule different parts. Herod Antipas became the ruler of the province/district called Galilee.
The focus here is not on the meaning of the word tetrarch. For this reason, you may translate tetrarch in a general way. You may want to make “Galilee” explicit in order to distinguish this Herod from the other rulers in the New Testament who were also named Herod. For example:
Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee (New Living Translation (2004))
-or-
Herod, the leader/governor ⌊of Galilee⌋
-or-
Herod ruled/governed ⌊the province called Galilee⌋.
The term tetrarch also occurred in 3:1c.
heard about all that was happening: The phrase heard about all that was happening indicates that Herod heard about all the amazing things that Jesus and his apostles were doing.
9:7b
This part of the verse expresses Herod’s reaction to the things that Jesus and his disciples were doing. Herod was perplexed. The next part of the verse (9:7c) gives the reason why he was perplexed. People were saying different things about Jesus, and Herod did not know which things were true. Express the connections in this verse in a natural way in your language. Here is one way to do this in English:
7aWhen Herod, the ruler of Galilee, heard about all the things that were happening, 7bhe was very confused, 7cbecause some people were saying… (Good News Translation)
he was perplexed: The clause he was perplexed means “he (Herod) was puzzled.” Herod did not know what to think about Jesus. He was confused because people had different ideas about who Jesus was. In some languages you may have an idiom to express this kind of confusion. Other ways to translate the clause in English are:
He was very confused
-or-
He did not know what to think about it
9:7c
For: The Greek conjunction that the Berean Standard Bible translates as For introduces the reason why Herod was perplexed. Different people were saying different things about Jesus.
some were saying that: The word some means “some people” and refers to the first of three different groups of people who had different ideas about who Jesus was.
John had risen from the dead: Some people said that Jesus was really John the Baptizer, who had become alive again. In some languages you may need to make the meaning more explicit. For example:
Some were saying that ⌊Jesus was⌋ John, who had been raised from the dead
The verb phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates with an active form, had risen, is passive in Greek. This indicates that John did not rise from the dead on his own. Someone raised him from the dead. In some languages it may be natural to use an active verb and say who did the action. For example:
⌊God⌋ had raised John from the dead
© 2009, 2010, 2013 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.