So this is the God of the Hebrews, Yahweh, and despite many ups and downs, the Jewish people have stuck with him for, according to the Hebrew calendar, at least over 5,700 years. And he has stuck by them too, despite the Jews being on occasion something of a disappointment to him, which leads to various miseries, and also to a tradition of prophets who speak for God and warn the people to get back on the right path lest there be more miseries. Which brings us back to our friends, the Romans. By the time Jesus was born, the land of the Israelites had been absorbed into the Roman Empire as the province of Judea. At the time of Jesus' birth, Judea was under the control of Herod the Great, best known for building the massive temple in Jerusalem that the Romans would later destroy. And by the time Jesus died, an expanded Judea was under the rule of Herod Antipater, also unhelpfully known as Herod. Both Herods ultimately took their orders from the Romans, and they both show up on the list of rulers who were oppressive to the Jews, partly because there's never that much religious freedom in an empire.