Herod Agrippa II was the eighth and last ruler of the Herodian dynasty. He was the fifth of the Herodians to hold the title of king, He ruled over lands outside of Judea only as a Roman patron. Agrippa was defeated by the Jews in 66 and supported the Romans in the First Jewish–Roman War.
Family life
Herod Agrippa II was the son of Herod Agrippa 1 whose death is recorded in Acts 12:20–23. Agrippa II was a Jew by virtue of descent from Herod the Great’s wife Mariamne. He was also the brother of Berenice, Mariamne, and Drusilla (Acts 24:24), the second wife of the Roman procurator Antonius Felix.
In 44 AD, when his father died he was seventeen years old, so, the Emperor Claudius kept him at Rome as he was considered too young to take the kingship of Palestine (Josephus Antiquities xix. 9. 2). And the emperor appointed Cuspius Fadus as procurator of the Roman province of Judea.
Ruler-ship
48 AD – Agrippa ruled over the Syrian kingdom of Chalcis on the death of king Herod of Chalcis. He had the authority to supervise the Temple in Jerusalem and appoint its high priest (ibid. xx. 5. 2).
53 AD – Agrippa gave up the tetrarchy of Chalcis. And the Emperor Claudius made him king over the territories previously governed by Philip, namely, Batanea, Trachonitis, Gaulonitis, and the kingdom of Lysanias in Abila (ibid. 7. 1).
55 AD – The Emperor Nero also gave Agrippa’s the cities of Tiberias and Taricheae in Galilee, and Livias (Iulias), with fourteen villages near it.
57 AD – Aristobulus took the tetrarchy of Chalcis.
59 AD – According to the book of Acts (ch. 26), the apostle Paul, possibly, pleaded his case at Caesarea Maritima. And Festus the procurator of Judea would naturally turn to Agrippa II for counsel concerning the handling of Paul’s case.
War with Rome
56/66 AD – The Jews refused to pay the tribute to Rome because Caesar and Agrippa failed to stop their subjects from rebelling.
66 AD – The citizenry of Jerusalem expelled their king Agrippa, and his sister, Berenice, from Jerusalem.
68- 73 AD – During the Jewish war, Agrippa sided with the Romans against the Jews, whom he tried to persuade against rebellion (Josephus War ii. 16. 4 [345–401]).
Death
93/94 AD – The modern scholarly consensus believes that Agrippa died at the age of seventy in Rome where he retired. And he was without a child and the last prince from the House of Herod.
In His service,
BibleAsk Team
