In Bethlehem, Judea, in 5 BCE, armed soldiers are marching through the streets, looking for babies to kill. The current monarch of Judea, Herod the Great, has heard that the new king of the Jewish people has been born, so he orders his soldiers to kill every male child two years old and younger.

King Herod, a Roman-appointed ruler of Judea, has hired mercenaries from Greece, Syria, and modern-day France to scour the countryside and kill the infants. Herod, almost 70 and with many ailments from gout to gangrene, can no longer ride out to execute his orders himself. “No one in Judea is safe from Herod’s executions” (13), and he uses creative methods to punish dissent. The only form of execution he avoids is Roman crucifixion, not wanting to risk the anger of his Roman masters by appropriating their chosen method of torture.

Herod first learned of the existence of the infant king from three wealthy foreigners who traveled to Judea because of the appearance of a star in the East. They bring treasures for the newborn, which troubles Herod. He consults his Jewish religious advisors, who inform him that according to the prophecies of Micah in their scriptures, the king was born in Bethlehem.