Now King Herod heard of Him, for His name had become well known. And he said, “John the Baptist is risen from the dead, and therefore these powers are at work in him.”
1) John was killed by Herod out of fear. Fear of what the people would say when his daughter in law asked Herod to hold up to his promise for anything at his birthday party. Fear of John’s exposure of adultery. Fear.
2) We see that Herod still operates out of fear. Jesus becomes well known, and Herod immediately equates him to John. He is reliving the sin from before. It still haunts him. This demon uses the same junk and lies over and over.
v16 Herod ignores the claims of Elijah and other prophets and emphatically states that it is John.
This is also jezebel at work. For Herodias was the voicepiece of the devil. Herodias exerted power over Herod like jezebel did over ahab.