Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Matthew 14:7

"Whereupon he promised with an oath to give her whatsoever she should ask." — Matthew 14:7 (ASV)

At Herod’s birthday feast, Herodias’s daughter by her former marriage, Salome, a girl between twelve and fourteen years old, danced before the king and his lords. The dance may have been very sensual. She pleased Herod Antipas enough for him to put on the airs of a lavish and powerful emperor; petty ruler though he was, he imitated the grandiloquence of ancient Persian monarchs (Esther 5:3, 6; 7:2). Still young enough to ask her mother’s advice, Salome’s dancing became the means for accomplishing Herodias’s darkest desire—the death of the man whose only offense had been telling the truth.