Acts 25:13
And after certain days king Agrippa and Bernice came unto Caesarea to salute Festus.
And after certain days,.... Several days after the above appeal made by Paul:
king Agrippa and Bernice came unto Caesarea to salute Festus: this King Agrippa was the son of Herod Agrippa, who killed James the brother of John, and of whose death mention is made in Acts 12:1 the Jewish chronologer {h} calls him Agrippa the Second, the son of Agrippa the First, the fifth king of the family of Herod: he was not king of Judea, this was reduced again into a province by Claudius; and upon the death of his uncle Herod, king of Chalcis, he was by the said emperor made king of that place, who afterwards removed him from thence to a greater kingdom, and gave him the tetrarchy, which was Philip's, his great uncle's; namely, Batanea, Trachonitis, and Gaulanitis, to which he added the kingdom of Lysanias; (see Luke 3:1) and the province which Varus had; and to these Nero added four cities, with what belonged to them; in Peraea, Abila and Julias, and in Galilee, Tarichea and Tiberias {i}. The Jewish writers often make mention of him, calling him, as here, King Agrippa;
See Gill on "Acts 26:3", and so does Josephus {k}. According to the above chronologer {l} he was had to Rome by Vespasian, when he went to be made Caesar; and was put to death by him, three years and a half before the destruction of the temple; though others say he lived some years after it: and some of the Jewish writers affirm, that in his days the temple was destroyed {m}. Agrippa, though he was a Jew, his name was a Roman name; Augustus Caesar had a relation of this name {n}, who had a son of the same name, and a daughter called Agrippina; and Herod the great being much obliged to the Romans, took the name from them, and gave it to one of his sons, the father of this king: the name originally was given to such persons, who at their birth came forth not with their heads first, as is the usual way of births, but with their feet first, and which is accounted a difficult birth; and "ab aegritudine", from the grief, trouble, and weariness of it, such are called Agrippas {o}. Bernice, who is said to be with King Agrippa, is not the name of a man, as some have supposed, because said to sit in the judgment hall with the king, but of a woman; so called, in the dialect of the Macedonians, for Pheronice, which signifies one that carries away the victory; and this same person is, in Suetonius {p}, called Queen Beronice, for whom Titus the emperor is said to have a very great love, and was near upon marrying her: she was not wife of Agrippa, as the Arabic version reads, but his sister; his father left besides him, three daughters, Bernice, Mariamne, and Drusilla, which last was the wife of Felix, Acts 24:24. Bernice was first married to her uncle Herod, king of Chalcis {q}, and after his death to Polemon, king of Cilicia, from whom she separated, and lived in too great familiarity with her brother Agrippa, as she had done before her second marriage, as was suspected {r}, to which incest Juvenal refers {s}; and with whom she now was, who came together to pay a visit to Festus, upon his coming to his government, and to congratulate him upon it.
{h} Ganz Tzemach David, par. 1. fol. 26. 1.
{i} Joseph. de Bello Jud. l. 2. c. 11. sect. 5. & c. 12. sect. 1. 8. & c. 13. sect. 2.
{k} Antiqu. l. 20. c. 8. sect. 1.
{l} Tzemach David, ib. col. 2.
{m} Jarchi & Bartenora in Misn. Sota, c. 7. sect. 8.
{n} Sueton. in Vita Augusti, c. 63, 64.
{o} A. Gell. Noct. Attic. l. 16. c. 16.
{p} In Vita Titi, c. 7.
{q} Joseph. Antiqu. l. 19. c. 5. sect. 1. & c. 9. sect. 1. & de Bello Jud. l. 2. c. 11. sect. 5, 6.
{r} Antiqu. l. 20. c. 6. sect. 3.
{s} Satyr 6.