Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Acts 25:13

"Now when certain days were passed, Agrippa the King and Bernice arrived at Caesarea, and saluted Festus." — Acts 25:13 (ASV)

Marcus Julius Agrippa II (A. D. 27–100) was the son of Herod Agrippa I . He was brought up at Rome in the court of Claudius and, like his father, was a favorite of the emperor. At his father’s death in 44 (see 12:21– 23), he was only seventeen years old—too young to rule over his father’s domains. Therefore Palestine became a Roman province administered by a provincial governor. In 50, Claudius appointed Agrippa II king of Chalcis, a petty kingdom to the northeast of Judea. In 53 Claudius gave him the tetrarchy of Philip in exchange for the kingdom of Chalcis, which he gave to Agrippa’s uncle Herod. And in 56 Nero added to his kingdom the Galilean cities of Tarichea and Tiberias with their surrounding lands and the Perean city of Julias with fourteen other villages. As ruler of the adjoining kingdom to the north, Herod Agrippa II came to pay his respects to Festus, the new governor of Judea. With Agrippa II was Bernice (properly Berenice), his sister one year younger than himself. She had been engaged to Marcus, a nephew of the philosopher Philo. Then she married her uncle Herod, king of Chalcis, but at his death in A. D. 48, she came to live with her brother Agrippa. Rumors of their incestuous relationship flourished in both Rome and Palestine.