Woman living at the time of New Testament - daughter of Herodias
Salome, the daughter of Herodias, danced before Herod and requested the execution of John the Baptist.
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Salome Salome, mentioned in Mat.14.6, was the daughter of Herodias and the stepdaughter of Herod Antipas. During Herod's birthday celebration, Salome danced before the guests, pleasing Herod so much that he promised to give her whatever she asked, up to half his kingdom. Prompted by her mother Herodias, who held a grudge against John the Baptist for speaking out against her marriage to Herod, Salome requested the head of John the Baptist on a platter. Herod, though grieved, felt bound by his oath and ordered the execution of John the Baptist. Salome's dance and her role in John the Baptist's death highlight the moral corruption and political intrigues within Herod's court.
Part of: The Herods
Mark calls the dancer "his daughter Herodias" in some manuscripts or "the daughter of Herodias" in others; Josephus names Herodias's daughter Salome, who later married the tetrarch Philip. The Gospels never name her.
Sources: Scripture · Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews
Josephus says Salome, Herodias's daughter, married Philip the tetrarch, her father's half-brother. The Gospels only say Philip ruled Iturea and Traconitis.
Sources: Scripture · Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews
Antipas arrested John over Herodias, feared and listened to him, and then had him beheaded after Salome's dance and a rash oath. Josephus gives a political motive (fear of unrest) rather than a marital one.
Sources: Scripture · Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews
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Perfect. (1.) The wife of Zebedee and mother of James and John (Mat. 27:56), and probably the sister of Mary, the mother of our Lord (John 19:25). She sought for her sons places of honour in Christ’s kingdom (Matt. 20:20, 21; comp. 19:28). She witnessed the crucifixion (Mark 15:40), and was present with the other women at the sepulchre (Matt. 27:56). (2.) “The daughter of Herodias,” not named in the New Testament. On the occasion of the birthday festival held by Herod Antipas, who had married her mother Herodias, in the fortress of Machaerus, she “came in and danced, and pleased Herod” (Mark 6:14-29). John the Baptist, at that time a prisoner in the dungeons underneath the castle, was at her request beheaded by order of Herod, and his head given to the damsel in a charger, “and the damsel gave it to her mother,” whose revengeful spirit was thus gratified. “A luxurious feast of the period” (says Farrar, Life of Christ) “was not regarded as complete unless it closed with some gross pantomimic representation; and doubtless Herod had adopted the evil fashion of his day. But he had not anticipated for his guests the rare luxury of seeing a princess, his own niece, a grand-daughter of Herod the Great and of Mariamne, a descendant, therefore, of Simon the high priest and the great line of Maccabean princes, a princess who afterwards became the wife of a tetrarch [Philip, tetrarch of Trachonitis] and the mother of a king, honouring them by degrading herself into a scenic dancer.”
SALO'ME. The wife of Zebedee, and the mother of James the elder and John the Evangelist, and probably the sister of the Virgin Mary, John 19:25; was one of the followers of Christ, Matt 27:56; Mark 15:40; Mark 16:1, though she seems, like many others, to have at first mistaken the true nature of his kingdom. Matt 20:21. The name of "the daughter of Herodias" who danced before Herod. Matt 14:6; Mark 6:22. She is not named in the N.T., but by Josephus (Antiq. 18,c.5,'4). The graphic account of Herod's feast may be traced to Chusa, the wife of Herod's steward, Luke 8:3, who was probably present. Salome married her uncle Philip, tetrarch of Trachonitis, and next Aristobulus, king of Chalcis.
Easton (1897), Smith (1863), Hitchcock (1869), Hastings (1898) and Schaff are in the public domain. Parsed text: neuu-org/bible-dictionary-dataset (CC BY 4.0). Headwords and whitespace normalised for this site.
1 verse in 1 book · English text: BSB (change it from the menu at the top) · Strong’s G2266
On Herodʼs birthday, however, the daughter of Herodias danced before them and pleased Herod
Names, family links and references: STEPBible TIPNR (Tyndale House Cambridge, CC BY 4.0). Short descriptions were drafted with AI assistance by STEPBible. Family links follow STEPBible’s scholarly decisions where genealogies are ambiguous.