KING AGRIPAS

 

King Agripas was born 10BC in Judea and died at 54 years old in Caesarea. He was a Judean monarch and a clever diplomat who through his friendship with the Roman imperial family obtained the kingdom of his grandfather, Herod I the Great. King Agripas was a Herodian Prince and the last Jewish king of Judea, who came from both Hasmonean and Herodian dynasties. He displayed great acumen in conciliating Romans and Jews and managed to reunite the  Kingdom of his grandfather Herod under Jewish rule. Like the ancestral Asmoneans from whom he sprang through his noble grandmother Myriam, he honored the Jewish Law: like the merest commoner, King Agripas carried his basket of first-fruits to the Temple with the consent of the Sages of the Torah (Mishnah Bikurim 3:4) and he gave an example to the people how to perform this mitzvah.