Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 2:16

"Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the Wise-men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the male children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the borders thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had exactly learned of the Wise-men." — Matthew 2:16 (ASV)

The slaughter of the infants of Bethlehem is not mentioned by Josephus or any other writer, and for that reason, its historicity has been questioned.

However, it is widely acknowledged that this act was entirely consistent with Herod’s character. He was tormented by an incurable disease and an even more incurable suspicion. His cruelty was so fiendish that he ordered the execution of many leading men of Judea to occur immediately upon his own death, ensuring there would be genuine mourning at his funeral.

Herod constantly drafted new wills according to the passion of the moment, and his final act was to add the death of another son, Antipater, to those of Mariamne’s two sons. It was famously reported that Augustus said it was better to be “Herod’s swine than his son.” Therefore, it is entirely plausible that Herod would have given such a command among the many cruel and reckless acts of the last months of his life.

We should not be surprised that the act was not recorded elsewhere. The population of Bethlehem was likely no more than 2,000, meaning the number of male children under two years old would have been between twenty and thirty. While the cruelty of such an act would be etched into the local memory—from which the Gospel record was directly or indirectly derived—it could easily escape the notice of a historian writing eighty or ninety years later about the period’s wars and court history.

Furthermore, the secrecy that marked the earlier part of Herod’s scheme (Matthew 2:7) would naturally have extended to its execution, at least as far as Jerusalem was concerned.