Verse 2 This is John the Baptist - Ον εγω απεκεφαλισα, Whom I beheaded. These words are added here by the Codex Bezae and several others, by the Saxon, and five copies of the Itala. - See the power of conscience! He is miserable because he is guilty; being continually under the dominion of self-accusation, reproach, and remorse. No need for the Baptist now: conscience performs the office of ten thousand accusers! But, to complete the misery, a guilty conscience offers no relief from God - points out no salvation from sin. He is risen from the dead - From this we may observe: 1. That the resurrection of the dead was a common opinion among the Jews; and 2. That the materiality of the soul made no part of Herod's creed. Bad and profligate as he was, it was not deemed by him a thing impossible with God to raise the dead; and the spirit of the murdered Baptist had a permanent resurrection in his guilty conscience.

He is risen from the dead - Herod was a Sadducee: and the Sadducees denied the resurrection of the dead. But Sadduceeism staggers when conscience awakes.

Mat 14:2

And said unto his servants. According to Luke, the following assertion was brought forward by some, but was, it would seem, summarily rejected by Herod (Luk 9:7, Luk 9:9); according to Mark (ἔλεγον, Westcott and Hort, text) it was common talk, and agreed to by Herod. If a reconciliation of so unimportant a verbal disagreement be sought for, it may perhaps lie in Luke representing Herod’s first exclamation, and Matthew, with Mark, his settled belief. Clearly Herod did not originate it, as the summary account in our Gospel would lead us to suppose. This is John the Baptist (Mat 3:1 and Mat 4:12, notes). (For this opinion about our Lord, compare, besides the parallel passages referred to in the last note, also Mat 16:14.) He (αὐτός, Mat 1:21, note) is risen from the dead. The other dead still lie in Hades (ἀπὸ τῶν νεκρῶν). Plumptre, on Mark, adduces a curious passage from Persius, 5:180-188, which he thinks is based on a story that when Herod celebrated another of his birthdays (cf. verse 6) in Rome, in A.D. 39, he was terrified by a Banquo-like appearance of the murdered prophet. The superstition that already suggested to Herod the resurrection of John might well act more strongly on the anniversary of the murder, and after he had connived at the death of the One who, by his miracles, showed that he possessed greater power than John. And therefore; "because he is no ordinary man, but one risen from the dead" (Meyer). Mighty works do show forth themselves in him (αἱδυνάμεις ἐνεργοῦσιν ἐν αἰ τῷ) do these powers work in him (Revised Version). "These" (αἱ, the article of reference), i.e. these which are spoken of in the report (verse 1). Αἱδυνάμεις may be

(1) specifically miracles (cf. Mat 13:58), in which case they are regarded as potentially active in John before their completion in history; or

(2) the powers of working miracles, as perhaps in 1Co 12:28. Observe that this passage confirms the statement of Joh 10:41, that John performed no miracle. Observe that it is also an indirect witness to the fact of our Lord performing miracles. For Herod’s utterance is not such as a forger would have imagined.

Verse 2. This is John the Baptist. Herod feared John. His conscience smote him for his crimes. He remembered that he had wickedly put him to death. He knew him to be a distinguished prophet; and he concluded that no other one was capable of working such miracles but he who had been distinguished in his life, and who had again risen from the dead, and entered the dominions of his murderer. The alarm in his court it seems was general. Herod's conscience told him that this was John. Others thought that it might be the expected Elijah, or one of the old prophets, Mk 6:15. (1) "mighty" or, "are wrought by him"