The girl went out and said to her mother, “What should I ask for?” And she said, “The head of John the Baptist.”
Here it is revealed how deep and deliberate Herodias’s hatred was. The girl had no great desire of her own, but immediately goes to her mother to ask for counsel. She does not act by her own judgment, but under her mother’s influence. Without hesitation the mother demands the head of John the Baptist. This shows that in her heart she had already been nurturing that deadly desire for a long time. Sin, when it is kept without repentance, ripens and, as soon as it finds an opportunity, expresses itself in all its evil. What at first was hatred now becomes a concrete demand for murder. This scene also shows the dreadful power of bad influence. The mother makes her daughter the instrument of her evil desire. Within the family, where good ought to have been taught, unspeakable evil is implanted.