Mark 6:27-28

‘And immediately the king sent out an executioner and commanded to bring his head, and he went and beheaded him in prison, and brought his head on a plate and gave it to the young woman, and the young woman gave it to her mother.'

The evil deed was done. No excuse can be found for Herod. Had he wanted to he could have avoided it. Probably no one would have blamed him, and no one would have seen the twisting of his oath by Herodias' daughter as binding. It was not within the spirit of the offer. But men have strange ideas when it comes to ‘honour', sometimes it replaces rightness, and possibly Herod was secretly glad of the excuse. Whichever was true he gave the command and John was beheaded and his head brought in on a plate.

‘An executioner.' The word is ‘speculator', originally it was used of a Roman scout but was then used to denote a member of the headquarters staff of a ruling personage whose duties included the carrying out of executions. This it came to be used in Aramaic and Rabbinic Hebrew for an executioner.

‘Gave it to the young woman, and the young woman gave it to her mother.' When Herodias' daughter looked at the grisly present she had received she faltered and passed it immediately to her hardened mother. She did not want it. There was still some vestige of decency, however small, within her. But for Herodias there was only delight. We can compare these words here, with the words, ‘He gave them to His disciples to set before the people' (Mark 6:41). What a contrast between two worlds.