When Herod the Great died, his kingdom was divided between three of his sons, Archelaus, Philip and Herod Antipas. Archelaus, referred to in Matthew 2 :22 and Luke 3: 1, was permitted by the Roman Emperor Augustus (Luke 2:1) to be ruler of an area made up of Samaria, Judaea (of which Jerusalem was the centre), and Idumaea in the south. He began badly as a ruler because a riot broke out in Jerusalem during the first Passover of his rule and his soldiers quelled it with such violence that 3,000 Jews were killed, including many pilgrims. In A.D. 6 he was deposed by the Romans who put his area under a procurator or minor governor, a Roman. Philip became ruler over the northern and north eastern parts of his father's kingdom and succeeded in ruling peacefully until his death in A.D. 34. ; He rebuilt the city which he renamed Caesarea Philippi, referred to in the gospels. Herod Antipas became ruler of Galilee and the area across the river Jordan. He was the ruler who executed John the Baptist (Mark 6:14-29). The Romans eventually deposed him in A.D. 39.

 

The family of the Herods continued their hated rule over the Jews when Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12:1-3 and 21-23) was made king by the Romans and by A.D. 41 had been given authority to rule an area as Large as that over which his grandfather Herod the Great had ruled. He was the ruler who killed James, the brother of John.

 

The last of the Herods was Herod Agrippa II, before whom Paul m his case after he had been arrested (Acts 25: 13-26, 32). He was allowed by the Romans to rule only part of the territory which his father had h the rest of Jewish territory coming again under a Roman governor.

 

Jewish hatred of their Roman rulers had by then reached a very dangerous pitch and when, in A.D. 66, the Roman governor demanded mo from the Temple treasury, this began a rebellion by the Jews which not end until Jerusalem was besieged by the Roman armies in A.D. -and destroyed. We have a firsthand account of what happened from t Jewish historian Josephus, whose books on 'The History of the Jewish War against the Romans' have survived. The Romans treated the rebellious Jews with ruthless cruelty. The Temple was completely destroyed many thousands of Jews either died or were taken captive and sold in' slavery in other parts of the Roman Empire. Judaea was left a devastate area with only a remnant of the original population. The Romans kept a legion of Roman soldiers stationed at what had been the city of Jerusalem. The name of the country was changed to Palestina' (land of the Philistines) in a deliberate attempt to wipe out the name of the Je from what had been their land.

 

Despite the terrible punishment of the Jews in A.D. 70, there was one last attempt, fifty years later, by Jewish rebels to re-establish themselves In A.D. 132, a Jewish rebel named Bar-Cochbar began a desperate attempt to fight the Romans again, but was crushed. After this, the Rom Emperor Hadrian was determined that the Jews would never again return to Jerusalem. He ordered that a new city should be built on the site of Jerusalem, a city on completely Roman lines with a new Latin name in honor of his own family and the Roman god Jupiter. On the site where the Temple had been, a temple was built to the god Jupiter. The new city became a Roman colony which no Jew was allowed to enter

In the centuries ahead, the Jewish people were not to be associated with Jerusalem or Judaea, but with the communities scattered over many lands of Western Asia, North Africa, and the Mediterranean lands.