---
title: Matthew 14:6
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/matthew-14-6/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/matthew-14-6.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Matthew 14:6
testament: NT
section: Gospels
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Matthew 14:6

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> On Herod’s birthday, however, the daughter of Herodias danced before them and pleased Herod

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "But when Herod's birthday was being celebrated, the daughter of Herodias danced for the occasion and pleased Herod so much"

## JW Usage

Matthew 14:6 is one of the two "birthday narratives" the Reasoning From the Scriptures book uses to ground the Watchtower's birthday ban. Herod's birthday feast led to the beheading of John the Baptist; combined with Pharaoh's birthday feast in Genesis 40:20-22 (which ended in the execution of his baker), the rs book argues that birthday celebrations are inherently associated with violence and divine disapproval. The two-narratives pattern is treated as Jehovah's "unfavourable report" on birthday observance.

## Protestant Usage

Two pagan-tyrant narratives is not a pattern. Both Pharaoh and Herod are figures whose entire biographies are unfavourable reports — Pharaoh murdered his own baker on a whim, Herod was bullied by his stepdaughter into beheading the prophet who rebuked his marriage. The common factor is the tyranny and the rash oath, not the feast. Apply the same hermeneutic consistently and the rs argument collapses: the Bible records Jesus cursing the only fig tree named in detail, so therefore fig trees are evil; David wrote a letter to have Uriah killed, so therefore writing letters is evil; Zechariah was struck mute for asking a question, so therefore asking God questions is forbidden. The narrative-as-prescription move is the fallacy. Pair Matthew 14:6 with Luke 1:14 (the angel Gabriel prophesying that "many will rejoice over [John's] birth"), Jeremiah 20:14 ("cursed be the day I was born"), and Job 3:1 ("Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth") — the latter two presuppose that the day of birth was normally blessed, which you cannot curse if it was never customarily blessed.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [The Birthday Ban — A Rule Generalised From Two Pagan Tyrants](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/birthday-ban-extrabiblical-canon.md) — Romans 14:5-6 / Jeremiah 20:14 / Job 3:1 [Practice]