Out of the wreckage of the Hasmoneans rose one of history's most capable and most cruel rulers: Herod the Great. His father Antipater, an Idumean (Edomite) who had backed Hyrcanus, made the family indispensable to Rome; Rome rewarded the son. With Roman arms Herod took Jerusalem in 37 BC, executed the last Hasmonean king, Antigonus, and made himself king of the Jews, a title Rome granted and Judea endured (ISBE, "Asmoneans"; Schürer, Div. I, "Herod the Great (B.C. 37–4)"). He reigned until 4 BC, a brilliant builder and a paranoid murderer who killed his own wife and sons to secure his throne.
Herod is the king on the throne when the New Testament opens. Matthew sets the birth of Jesus "in the days of Herod the king," and tells of his slaughter of the infants of Bethlehem (Matthew 2:1, 16); Luke likewise dates John the Baptist's beginnings to "the days of Herod, the king of Judaea" (Luke 1:5). His single greatest work was the rebuilding of the temple on a colossal scale, the very temple of the Gospels, of which the people tell Jesus, "Forty and six years was this temple in building" (John 2:20). The stage on which Jesus would walk was, quite literally, built by Herod.