There is one mystery of Bethlehem that isn’t as easy to explain and it has less to do with the goodness of God and more to do with the evil of man. And Herod was evil and extremely suspicious that others were trying to take his power, he murdered his wife and mother in law as well as three of his sons. Barlcay tells us that Augustus, the Roman Emperor, had said “It is safer to be Herod’s pig than Herod’s son” Which was a lot more poetic in the Greek where the word for Pig was Hus and for Son was Huios
Some people wonder why genocide like this wouldn’t be mentioned in history. Well, remember that at the time Bethlehem probably had a population of no more than 2000, less than half the population of Kingswood. So we are probably talking the death of 25 or 30 children tops. In a time when murder and unrighteousness was so wide spread the only people who would have been outraged at this tragedy would have been the parents.
Denn Guptill