Verse 5 He feared the multitude - Miserable prince! who fears more to offend his people, than to sin against his God, by shedding innocent blood. When a man resists sin only by the help of human motives, he cannot long defend himself.

He would have put him to death - ln his fit of passion; but he was then restrained by fear of the multitude; and afterward by the reverence he bore him.

Mat 14:5

And when he would have put him to death, he feared the multitude (cf. Luk 20:6). Mark has, "And Herodias set herself against him, and would have put him to death; and she could not; for Herod feared John." The more detailed account in Mark is doubtless the more exact. Perhaps the facts of the case were that, in the first heat of his resentment, Herod wished to kill John, but feared the anger of the people, and that afterwards, when he him in his power and Herodias still urged his death, Herod had himself learned to respect him. Observe

(1) that it is quite impossible to suppose that either evangelist had the words of the other in front of him. The difference does not consist merely of addition or explanation;

(2) that these are exactly the kind of verbal coincidences which might be expected to be found in two oral traditions starting from a common basis. For they counted him as a prophet (ὡς προφήτην αὐτὸν εἶχον); so Mat 21:26.