<p>6:26 <em>And the king was exceeding sorry; but for the sake of his oaths and his dinner guests, he could not reject her request</em>- And yet we learn in Mt. 14:5 that Herod had wanted to kill John because John had criticized Herod&rsquo;s lifestyle. We may feel flushes of anger against a person, but if it were to come to actually carrying out what we imagine- we would likely regret it.</p><p>A&nbsp;<em>horkos</em>&nbsp;&quot;oath&quot; was not merely a verbal promise; although he was not ethnically Jewish, Herod claimed to be a practicing Jew, and an 'oath' would've been something like 'May I be eternally condemned at the last day if I do not...'. Peter used the same oaths in denying the Lord. And so we see the torture of this unhappy man- asking himself to be condemned if he didn't do something which surely warrants eternal condemnation. The only way out was to&nbsp;<em>change</em>, to re-pent, to re-think; to recognize that he was not going to get out of this without a deep repentance.</p>