But Herod was to be punished more effectually by eternal justice than would have been possible had he been arraigned before the severest earthly tribunal. Even the pleasure that was granted him before he entirely succumbed to his loathsome malady, the delight of being able to order the execution of his son, was soon followed by a paroxysm of pain in which he nearly caused his own destruction. His relative Achiab tore the knife from his hand, but the cry of horror that arose from his palace in Jericho at this suicidal attempt, came to the ear of Antipater, a prisoner in the same palace. He began to hope that his life might yet be spared, and he besought his gaoler to release him. But the gaoler, who feared to risk his own life, hurried into the king's apartments, to see if the cruel monarch still lived. When Herod heard that Antipater yet hoped to outlive him, he ordered his instant assassination, and his orders were forthwith obeyed. Although Antipater deserved his death tenfold, yet there was a general feeling of horror at the idea of a father who could sentence his three sons to death. Even Augustus, who did not show any tenderly paternal feelings to his daughter Julia, could not help exclaiming at the news of Antipater's execution, that "he would rather be Herod's swine than his son." A legend of later date tells how Herod was not satisfied with shedding the blood of his own children, but how, in a passion, he ordered all children under two years of age in Bethlehem and the surrounding country to be massacred, because he had heard that the Messiah of the House of David had been born in that place! But Herod, criminal as he was, was innocent of this crime.
Herod's last thoughts dwelt, however, upon bloodshed. He insisted upon the most respected men of Judæa being brought to Jericho, and imprisoned in the great public arena, where they were closely guarded; he then left orders with his sister Salome and her husband that directly after his death had taken place they should be all massacred by his body-guard, so that the entire nation might be mourning their loved ones, and no one would have the heart to rejoice over his demise. Murder filled his thoughts from the first moment of his public life until he drew his last breath. He died five days after the execution of Antipater, in the sixty-ninth year of his life and the thirty-seventh of his reign, in the spring of the year 4 B. C. His flatterers called him "Herod the Great," but the nation only knew him as "the Hasmonæan slave." Whilst his body was being taken in all pomp to its resting-place in Herodium, under the escort of the Thracian, German and Gallic body-guard, the nation joyfully celebrated the day as a semi-festival.