Herod Agrippa I was at the height of his power. He'd had James executed and Peter imprisoned and the people of Tyre and Sidon were desperate for his favor. They came saying, 'Your voice is the voice of a god, not of a man.' He accepted their worship. He didn't rebuke them. And in that moment, worms began eating him from the inside.
I teach history, and I'm struck by what we know about Agrippa from outside sources. He was actually a competent administrator. He was liked by many. He was trying to maintain balance between Rome and the Jewish establishment. But his weakness was the same as most tyrants: he couldn't distinguish between power and worth. When people offered him divinity, he accepted it. When they offered him flattery, he basked in it.
The worms are so specific. It's not glorious warfare or valiant battle. It's disease from within, the body consuming itself. I wonder about the spiritual principle here. Unopposed pride doesn't expand infinitely. It eventually collapses under its own weight. It poisons from the inside. Agrippa wanted to be seen as divine, and the divine took him at his word. The judgment isn't theatrical. It's almost mundane. He simply died, his body failing, his divinity exposed as pretense.
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