Aretas IV Philopatris
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Aretas IV Philopatris was the King of the Nabataeans from roughly 9 BC to AD 40.
His daughter Phasaelis married Herod Antipas (4 BC – AD 39), otherwise known as Herod the Tetrarch. When Herod divorced Phasaelis to take his brother's wife Herodias, mother of Salome, in 36, Phaesalis fled to her father. Relations between Herod and Aretas IV were already strained over border disputes, and with his family honor shamed, Aretas IV invaded Judea, and captured territories along the West Bank of the Jordan River, including the areas around Qumran.
The classical author Josephus connects this battle, which occurred during the winter of AD 36/37, with the beheading of John the Baptist, which occurred about the same time.
Herod Antipas then appealed to Emperor Tiberius, who dispatched the governor of Syria to attack Aretas. But because of the emperor's death in AD 37 this action was never carried out.[1]
The Christian Apostle, Paul, mentions that he had to sneak out of Damascus in a basket through a window in the wall to escape King Aretas. (2 Corinthians 11:32, 33, cf Acts 9:23, 24)
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