Agrippa goes after Passover in 44 to Caesarea, where he has a spectacular series of games performed in honor of Claudius.

Amid his elation, Agrippa sees an owl perched over his head.

A similar omen during his imprisonment by Tiberius had been interpreted as portending his speedy release, with the warning that should he behold the same sight again, he would die within five days.

He is immediately smitten with violent pains, and scolds his friends for flattering him and accepting his imminent death.

He experiences heart pains and a pain in his abdomen, and dies after five days.

Acts 12 relates that he was eaten by worms, (possibly Fournier's gangrene, the same disease that may have killed his grandfather Herod the Great) after God struck him for accepting the praise of sycophants, comparing him to a god. Josephus, in Antiquitates Judaicae xix. Chapter 8 para 3, then relates how Agrippa's brother, Herod of Chalcis, and Helcias sent Aristo to kill Silas:

“But before the multitude were made acquainted with Agrippa's being expired, Herod the king of Chalcis, and Helcias the master of his horse, and the king's friend, sent Aristo, one of the king's most faithful servants, and slew Silas, who had been their enemy, as if it had been done by the king's own command.”

"King Herod", mentioned in the Bible's Acts of the Apostles, is identified by historians as the same person as King Agrippa I.

The identification is based in part on the description of his death, which is very similar to Agrippa's death in Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews 19.8.2, although Josephus does not include the claim that "an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms".

Further evidence is the identification of the ruler in Acts 12:1 as "Herod the king", since Agrippa I is the only Herod who would have had authority in Jerusalem at that time.

The description of Herod Agrippa I as a cruel, heartless king who persecuted the Jerusalem church, having James son of Zebedee killed and imprisoning Peter, stands in stark contrast with Josephus' account of a kindly man.

According to Josephus, he was a milder ruler than his grandfather Herod the Great, and Josephus records him as talking with and then forgiving a law student accused of political rabble rousing.

Christian scholars argue that the biblical account might make sense if one recalls that Agrippa had been born and raised to revere his Jewishness.

Agrippa would resent a movement begun during his absence from Judæa when explained to him by the religious leaders of Israel as a sacrilegious mission trying to equate a mere man, Jesus of Nazareth, with the One God of Judaism.

Herod Antipas, uncle and predecessor of Agrippa I as ruler of Galilee and Peræa, is the Herod mentioned in the Gospels who authorized the execution of John the Baptist and played a role in the trial of Jesus.

Agrippa’s son, called Agrippa II, has been educated at the court of Claudius, and at the time of his father's death is only seventeen years old.

Claudius therefore keeps him at Rome, and sends Cuspius Fadus as procurator of the Roman province of Judaea.