“A voice was heard in Ramah,

Weeping and great mourning,

Rachel weeping for her children;

And she would not be comforted,

Because they are not.”

The prophecy is taken from Jer 31:15. There Israel is seen in terms of Rachel, the mother of the clans of Joseph and Benjamin, Ephraim and Manasseh. But the sons of her slave would also be seen as hers, and apparently Leah’s children as well. For Rachel is seen as weeping for all Israel. And why is she weeping? In context it is because her children have gone. They are either dead or in exile. They ‘are not’. And now another child has gone into exile, and others are dead, slaughtered by man’s inhumanity to man

But why was she weeping in Ramah? The answer is that it was because Ramah is where she was buried. So she is seen as weeping in her grave at Ramah for her beloved children, both dead and exiled, originally at the time of Jeremiah, but continuing on to the present day. And her weeping is not just for them. It is a weeping that reaches out into the future because of what is yet to come on Israel. It is a weeping that will not cease until she sees all her children restored. For just prior to the words in Jeremiah is his description of the hoped for restoration of God’s people (Jer 31:10-14). And her weeping is to precede this hope of theirs, a hope which will be fulfilled ‘in the latter end’ (Jer 31:17), when her weeping will be rewarded by their restoration, when the new covenant will be made with them by God which will transform their hearts (Jer 31:31-34).

So, says Matthew, do not be surprised at this cause of weeping which results from Herod’s cruelty and slaughter, and at the need for the One Who represents Israel to go into exile. Such weeping is but a sign that God’s purposes are still going forward, even in the midst of suffering. And in this case it is a sign that Messiah is coming, indeed is almost here. Soon He will return from exile bringing with Him the hopes of Israel. Here Israel’s weeping is seen as being brought to its climax in view of the good time that is coming, which will result from the coming of Jesus, Who will bring them to God’s perfect rest. The experience is coming to its ‘filling full’, after which it will cease. (In future there will be weeping, but it will be because of the machinations of evil men, including many Jews, who will persecute God’s people. But it will no longer be a weeping of hopelessness).

EXCURSUS on Rachel’s Weeping.

We must apply similar methods of interpretation to Mat 2:17-18 as we have done previously. Here we read, ‘Then was fulfilled (or ‘filled to the full’) that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be comforted for they are not.” ’ It is then often asked, ‘what has Ramah to do with Bethlehem-judah?’ As we have already seen it need not have anything to do with it. It may simply be indicating where Rachel was to be found in her tomb at Ramah. However, other significant facts are that Ramah was on the way between Bethel and Bethlehem, and that Rachel’s death was also in fact connected with Bethlehem (Gen 35:16-19). But that is clearly not the full answer, and again we must consider its context, this time in Jer 31:15.

In Jeremiah’s prophecy these words in reality stand very much on their own, but the principle behind them is nevertheless clear and that is that it is Israel who are seen as weeping, and this in terms of their deceased ancestress Rachel. And she is weeping because many of their people are either dead or in exile, because ‘they are not’. As with the quotation from Hosea he has in mind those who are far from the land and ‘in exile’. This Ramah was presumably the Ramah near Gibeon (Jos 18:25) some miles north of Jerusalem, in Benjamite territory. In contrast Bethlehem-judah was six miles south of Jerusalem in the territory of Judah. But Jeremiah’s words are not based on the association of the one with the other but almost certainly on the fact that Rachel was thought to be buried near Ramah.

(In 1Sa 10:2 it is said to have been at Selsah, on the border of Benjamin, which is not definitely identified, but must have been near Ramah, while Gen 35:16; Gen 35:19 says that it was ‘on the way to Ephrath’, the old name for Bethlehem, a road that passed through what would later be Benjamite territory by Ramah. It was thus on the approach to Bethlehem (see also Rth 4:11). We must remember that in ancient days geography was not an exact science and places would therefore be identified by the nearest well known name).

But the vivid picture is not of the children of Ramah. It is of Rachel in her tomb at Ramah weeping because all her children, the whole of Israel, were suffering (we must remember that she was mother of Joseph and Benjamin, and therefore grandmother of Ephraim and Manasseh, and that the children of her maid would also be seen as hers, but she is probably to be seen as weeping for all Israel and Judah). And her weeping was because they were no longer before her eyes. Many were in Exile, others were dead. The verse is then followed by the promise that there is hope for their latter end (Jer 31:17), hope following the Messianic feast (Jer 31:13-14) when presumably Rachel (Israel) will be able to cease weeping, and when will be fulfilled the change of heart and mind in Israel that God requires (Jer 31:31-34). Thus Rachel’s weeping is seen by Jeremiah as something that would carry on until the end times when through God’s activity it would cease because God’s work of restoration would begin. It was therefore very appropriate for what Matthew saw as the beginning of ‘the last days’, the times of the Messiah. For the Messiah would remove the necessity for this kind of weeping. And to Matthew this exiling of the One Who represented Israel, and the accompanying needless destruction of twenty or so male children by Herod, was therefore to be seen as the last throes of the old dispensation as Rachel (Israel) continued to weep for her children.

Rachel’s death was a tragic one, although not in an uncommon way, for she died in childbirth (Gen 35:16-19) as did so many women in those days. Her tears would thus have been seen as very apt for a situation where children were involved. And the fact that she was depicted as weeping for children who were lost to her, and would continue to do so until they were brought home, made it very applicable to this case. Thus Matthew is simply pointing out that Rachel (as representative of mother Israel) wept whenever children who were born in Israel ‘were not’ as a result of man’s inhumanity. And that was why this slaughter of Israel’s children was to be seen as one of ‘her’ causes of weeping, and a very significant one because it heralded the coming of the Messiah. He is taking the verse as signifying the perpetual grief of the symbolic Rachel for Israel’s suffering, in whatever form that suffering takes, right up to the end times, and especially in such cases as this, until her children return to her. She is therefore also weeping for the return of the Exiled One. So the present generation are to be comforted by the thought of the past, and to see their suffering as part of the completion of the process whereby finally the good times would come through the appearance of the Messiah.

Each time Israel suffered, a partial fulfilment of these words was to be seen. At such times Rachel was to be seen as weeping in Ramah, especially when the problems related to children. And now when the coming of the Messiah seemed to be bringing hope to the world, it was not, says Matthew, to be seen as surprising that this weeping was intensified as a result of the sufferings that accompanied His birth. This weeping then represented and symbolised the birth pangs of the Messianic age which had been so clearly portended (Isa 13:8; Isa 26:17; Jer 4:31; Jer 6:24; Mic 4:9-10. See also 2Es 16:38-39 ). And ‘Rachel’ therefore felt them most intensely. Who better to have in mind in view of how she died? Here at last Jeremiah’s words were being ‘filled to the full’

So Matthew clearly saw that the weeping for these children in Bethlehem was all part of the weeping of ‘Rachel’, a weeping that was expected in the end to result in the coming of the Messianic Banquet (Jer 31:13-14). And he knew that it would speak to the hearts of those who were still weeping, awaiting His coming. He may well also have wanted the actual mothers of these slain sons to know that ‘Rachel’, as one who understood such situations, was weeping for them, something which would help to comfort all who were finding their suffering difficult to understand. It would make them aware that God was not insensitive to their cries, but knew what was happening (compare Luk 18:7). Matthew may even himself have known people who were still grieving over their lost sons in Bethlehem. But even more was he aware of unbelieving Israel’s constant weeping as they looked ahead in hope of deliverance. Thus again, far from being a naive application of words that were irrelevant, this is to be seen as something pregnant with meaning concerning the coming of Jesus, and as having a direct message at that time for his Jewish readers. The weeping of Israel was soon coming to an end. For Israel would finally be ‘called out of Egypt’ in Jesus, and true Israel would genuinely respond to Him in their hearts, and would no longer need to see themselves as ‘in Exile’ and away from where God could be worshipped (Joh 4:20-23), and this all because of the activity of Jesus.

This then links his use of this prophecy, with the previous one. When God ‘called His son out of Egypt’ it followed a time when Rachel truly had been weeping for her children, for the Gentile world had been seeking to destroy them in the form of Pharaoh’s annihilation of the sons of Israel (Exo 1:15-22), a destruction that Herod was now imitating. But one son survived that annihilation and led Israel out of Egypt. Now Rachel is weeping for her children again, but again one child will survive the annihilation, and will ‘lead His people out of Egypt’. It is to be the end of Rachel’s weeping.

End of EXCURSUS.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Mat 2:18 . Jer 31:15 (freely quoted according to the Septuagint) treats of the leading away of the Jews to Babylon, whose destiny Rachel, the ancestress of the children of Ephraim, bewails. According to the typically prophetic view in Matthew , the lamentation and mourning of Rachel, represented by the prophet, has an antitypical reference to the murdering of the children of Bethlehem, who are her children, because she was the wife of Jacob, and the mother of Joseph and Benjamin (Gen 35:18 ). And this reference was all the more obvious that, according to Gen 35:19 , [370] Rachel was buried at Bethlehem (Robinson, I. p. 373). According to Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, Piscator, Fritzsche, Rachel is regarded as the representative of Bethlehem, or of the mothers of Bethlehem. But why, in keeping with the antitypical view of the prophet’s words, should not Rachel herself appear as lamenting over the massacre of those children? Rama , however, where, according to the prophet, that lamentation resounded, is here the type of Bethlehem .

Regarding the position of Rama (now the village er Ram ), near to Gibeah, two hours to the north of Jerusalem, belonging at one time to Ephraim, at another to Benjamin, and on its identity, which is denied by others, with the Ramah of Samuel (Gesenius, Thes . III. p. 1275; Thenius, Winer, von Raumer, Keim), see Graf in the Stud. u. Krit . 1854, p. 858 ff.; Pressel in Herzog’s Encykl . XII. p. 515 f. There the exiles were kept in custody, Jer 40:1 .

] The participle , which in general never stands for the finite tense (in answer to de Wette), has here its government either with (Fritzsche) or with , where is to be translated “ also ” ( Rachel weeping was also inaccessible to consolation; on the distinction between and , see Hartung, Partikell . I. p. 212 f.). The first is to be preferred as the most natural and most appropriate to the emotional style, so that links itself on as an apposition , and then the author “sequentium sententiarum gravitate commotus a participio ad verbum finitum deflectit,” Khner, ad Xen. Mem . ii. 1. 30.

On the tragic designation , mortuum esse , comp. xlii. 36; Thuc. ii. 44. 2; Herod. iii. 65; Wetstein in loc .; Ellendt, Lex. Soph . I. p. 515.

[370] Where, however, the words are to be regarded as a gloss. See Thenius on 1Sa 10:2 ; Graf in the Stud. u. Kritik. 1854, p. 868.

REMARK.

The slaughter of the children at Bethlehem is closely connected with the appearance of the Magi, and was in its legendary character already extended as early as Justin ( c. Tr . 78) to all the children of Bethlehem. Josephus, who makes such minute mention of the cruelty of Herod ( Antt . xv. 7. 8, xvi. 11. 3, xvii. 2. 4; see Ottii Spicileg . p. 541), is silent regarding this event, which, had it been known to him as a matter of history, he would most probably have mentioned on account of its unexampled brutality . The confused narrative of Macrobius ( Sat . ii. 4) [371] can here determine nothing, because it first proceeded directly or indirectly from the Christian tradition. Finally, the slaughter of the children itself appears not only as an altogether superfluous measure, since, after the surprising homage offered by the Magi, the child, recently born under extraordinary circumstances, must have been universally known in the small and certainly also provincial village of Bethlehem, or could at least have been easily and certainly discovered by the inquiries of the authorities; but also as a very unwise measure, since a summary slaughter of children could by no means give the absolute certainty which was aimed at. To understand the origin of the legend, it is not enough to point back to the typical element in the childhood of Moses, or even to the dangers undergone in childhood by Romulus, Cyrus, and so on (Strauss); but see the Remark after Mat 2:12 . It is arbitrary, however, to exclude the flight of Jesus into Egypt from this cycle of legends, and to explain it historically in an altogether strange fashion, from the terrible commotion in which, after the death of Herod, Jerusalem and the surrounding localities were plunged (Ammon, L. J. I. p. 226 f.). It is indissolubly connected with the slaughter of the children, and stands or falls with it; in the preliminary history of Luke there is no place whatever for it.

[371] Ed. Bipont. p. 341 of Augustus: “Cum audisset, inter pueros, quos in Syria Herodes, rex Judaeorum, intra bimatum jussit interfici, filium quoque ejus occisum, ait: melius est Herodis porcum ( ) esse quam filium ( ).” A confusion of the murder of Antipater (Joseph. Antt . vii. 7) with our history, as if a son of the king himself (in answer to Wieseler, Beitr . p. 154) had been among the murdered Syrian children.

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

DISCOURSE: 1281
THE SLAUGHTER OF THE INFANTS

Mat 2:16; Mat 2:18. Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning; Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.

WHILST ungodly men are perpetrating every species of wickedness, the language of their hearts, as interpreted by God himself, is this: The Lord seeth us not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth [Note: Eze 8:12; Eze 9:9.]. A similar thought is apt to arise in the heart, when our trials are multiplied, and relief is not speedily afforded us. It was in this way that the Israelites at Massah, when destitute of water, vented their murmurs: this was their atheistical inquiry; Is the Lord amongst us or not [Note: Exo 7:7.]? Even godly persons, under violent temptation, are sometimes ready to ask, Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies [Note: Psa 77:9.]? But a diligent attention to the Scriptures will fortify us against any such absurd conclusions. From them we shall learn, that however inattentive God may appear to be to the concerns of men, he directs, limits, and overrules all their actions, for the promotion of his own glory. Scarcely on any occasion should we have expected his interposition, more than for the prevention of that murderous edict, whereby all the infants of Bethlehem and the adjacent country were destroyed. Yet God saw fit to permit it; and interfered no further than was necessary for the fulfilling of his own word, and the accomplishing of his own eternal purpose.

Let us contemplate,

I.

The fact recorded

A more strange occurrence can scarcely be conceived. We wonder that any human being should be invested with such power, as to cause, by his own arbitrary mandate, the slaughter of so many innocent persons. We wonder still more, that, supposing this authority to be delegated to any one, there should be found agents to carry such an inhuman edict into execution. But most of all do we wonder, that a creature endued with reason should be capable of issuing such an order as Herod did on this occasion. But let us trace this action to its source: let us inquire into the principle from which this unparalleled barbarity proceeded

[The murderous purpose originated in jealousy. Herod possibly had heard of the birth of Jesus, previous to the arrival of the Wise Men: but that was the circumstance which put him upon making inquiries into the pretensions of this newborn infant. From them he learned, that a star or meteor had appeared to them in the East, and that they, either from revelation or from the traditionary prophecy of Balaam, had been led to interpret the appearance of that star as an intimation, that He who was to reign over the Jews was now born into the world. He was also informed by them, that they had come on purpose to pay him the homage which was due to such an exalted character. Upon this, Herod summoned all the chief priests and scribes, that he might learn from them what the prophets had declared respecting the place of their Messiahs nativity: and on understanding that Bethlehem was the place destined to that honour, he sent the Wise Men thither, and ordered them, when they had found the child, to come and give him information respecting him. This order he grounded upon a pretended desire to honour Christ; but with a secret determination to destroy him: for he concluded, that Christ was to have a temporal dominion; and that, if suffered to live, he would wrest the kingdom out of his hands. But such a rival he could not endure: and hence arose the secret purpose to destroy him.

But though jealousy first prompted him to form the murderous purpose, with respect to his supposed rival, it was offended pride that caused it to be extended to all the children around Bethlehem. The Wise Men, being warned by God of Herods purpose, returned no more to him: at this Herod was indignant: he conceived himself slighted and despised; but he was determined not to be disappointed of his desire; and therefore, to secure his object, he gave orders that all infants near the age of Jesus, and within the neighbourhood of the place where he was born, should be massacred without distinction.

What an amazing ascendant must these principles have over the heart of man! Well may it be said, that jealousy is cruel as the grave [Note: Son 8:6.]: nor indeed is pride less cruel, when its wounded feelings have scope for exercise. This we see in the two sons of Jacob, who, on account of their sister having been defiled by the Prince of Shechem, slew every male in the city: and, when reproved for their cruelty, they shewed, in their vindication of themselves, from whence that cruelty had proceeded: Should he deal with our sister as with an harlot [Note: Gen 34:31.]?;

Happy would it have been for the world, if such dispositions and conduct had been altogether banished by the Gospel of Christ: but the human heart is the same in every age and place: we still see that the love of power is a predominant principle in the mind of man; that where it is suffered to gain an ascendency, it will leave no means untried for the accomplishment of its ends; and that, if the more lenient methods of deceit and treachery will not succeed, it will wade through seas of blood to the attainment of its object: the cries of thousands and tens of thousands will not divert it from its purpose: nor will any thing but the utter extinction of a rival satisfy its blood-thirsty appetite [Note: Written in Feb. 1809, when the British army had been forced to leave Spain under the merciless dominion of Buonaparte.].

We must not however forget, that the same evil principles are in our own hearts: and, if we will only call to mind the irritation which we have felt on some particular occasions, we shall see reason to be thankful to God, who has kept us from carrying into execution all that our offended pride might have prompted us to effect.]
Before we proceed to make any practical remarks upon this fact, it will be proper to notice,

II.

The prophecy accomplished by it

The New Testament writers sometimes appeal to the prophecies of the Old Testament, as direct proofs of what they assert, and sometimes in a more lax way of accommodation only. It is in this latter way, we apprehend, that the prophecy before us is adduced [Note: Jer 31:15-17.]? In its primary meaning, it represented the Jews as collected at Rama, for the purpose of being carried into captivity to Babylon [Note: Jer 40:1.]; and Rachel (who had about eleven hundred years before been buried near that place [Note: Gen 35:19.]) as weeping over the disconsolate state of her posterity. The Evangelist beautifully applies the same figure to the slaughter of the children which took place at Bethlehem, which also was near to Rachels tomb; and, in this view, he speaks of the prophecy as again accomplished. This he might well do: for who can conceive the distress which that event occasioned?

[The murderous bands could not stop to see, whether, in every instance, the wounds they had inflicted had actually destroyed life: they must proceed rapidly in their work, lest any of the children should be carried off or concealed: and what anguish must the cries of so many children, (probably some thousands,) writhing in the agonies of death, in agonies protracted by the kind solicitude of their parents, have produced in the bosoms of their bereaved mothers! No language can paint, no imagination conceive, the horrors of that day. We may use the terms, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning; but we cannot affix to them any adequate ideas, or realize, in any just degree, that awful scene ]

We cannot but see from hence,
1.

How early our Lords sufferings began

[Scarcely was he born, before his life was sought, and he was forced to be carried an exile to the country which of all others had been most hostile to his progenitors. And, after the death of Herod, he was forced, for his security, to take up his abode in a town which fixed a stigma upon him to his latest hour [Note: Joh 1:46; Joh 7:52.]. These were, indeed, only the beginnings of his sorrows: but they may well reconcile his followers to any privations or reproaches which they may be called to endure for his sake. If for us he became a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, let us cheerfully bear our cross for him, and willingly suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together ]

2.

How vain are any attempts of man to counteract the designs of God

[Herod foolishly thought to defeat the purposes of heaven; but God held him in derision, and laughed him to scorn [Note: Psa 2:1-6.]. God knew his murderous plans, and warned the parents of our Lord to escape his fury; yea, and provided too for their journey and support in Egypt, by the offerings which the Wise Men had just before presented to the new-born King. Herod, to secure his purpose, ordered, not the children of Bethlehem only, but of all the neighbouring country; and not of one year old only, but all under two years old, to be massacred: but his attempts were vain; and instead of frustrating the designs of Heaven, he unwittingly fulfilled them; occasioning, by this very act, no less than three prophecies to be accomplished [Note: ver. 15, 17, 23. He still further confirmed the Messiahship of Jesus, by leading all the Jewish Sanhedrim to declare, that Bethlehem was to be the place of his nativity, ver. 46.]. Thus it is with all who set themselves against God: they may shew their malignity, but they cannot counteract his gracious designs. Many are the devices in mens hearts; nevertheless, the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand [Note: Pro 19:21.]. The wrath of man as far as it is permitted to be exercised shall praise him; and the remainder of that wrath shall he restrain [Note: Psa 76:10.]. We never need, therefore, to be afraid of man; for, if we commit our way unto the Lord, he will be our shield and buckler; and, if He be for us, we may triumphantly ask, Who can be against us [Note: Rom 8:31.]?]

3.

How certainly will there be a day of future retribution

[Can it be, that such an inhuman monster should never meet with any just recompence for his deeds? The mind revolts at the idea. If there be a God that governs the world, there must be a period when the present inequalities of his government shall be done away, and the equity of his dispensations be made apparent. Hence the day of judgment is in Scripture called, The day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God [Note: Rom 2:5.]: and we are told, that it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble us: and to us who are troubled, rest [Note: 2Th 1:6-7.]. Let us then act in reference to that day: whether exalted and at ease, or depressed and persecuted, let us look to that day, when our happiness or misery shall be for ever fixed. Let us dread prosperity, if it divert our attention from a future state; and let us welcome adversity, if it be the means of bringing us nearer unto God. The infants now have no cause to regret that they were called to such early martyrdom: and it is highly probable, that many of their parents have since found reason to give thanks to God for the weight of sorrow that then oppressed them. But the proud oppressor, who can reflect on his state without shuddering? how will he feel, when he shall stand at the tribunal of that very Jesus, whom, with such hypocrisy and cruelty, he laboured to destroy? O that, whenever tempted to sin, we may think of the account which we must one day give; and, whenever called to suffer, may look with Moses to the recompence of the reward!]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

18 In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.

Ver. 18. Lamentation, weeping, and great mourning ] How impatient was Jacob in the loss of Joseph; David of Absalom, &c. Grief for sin (than which none more deep and soaking), is set forth by this unparalleled lamentation: Zec 12:10 ; Mat 5:4 “Blessed are they that mourn” ( ), as men do at the death of their dearest children. But let such say to God, as St Jerome (ad Julian.) adviseth a friend of his in like case, Tulisti liberos, quos ipse dederas: non contristor quod recepisti: ago gratias quod dedisti: thou hast taken away whom thou hadst given me: I grieve not that thou hast taken them, but praise the Lord, that was pleased to give them.

Rachel weeping ] That is, Bethlehem, in the way whereto Rachel died in childbirth, and was buried. “Give me children, or else I die:” give her children, and yet she dies. Well might Bethlehem weep, if at this massacre there were (as some affirm it) 14,000 infants butchered.

For her children ] Those dear pledges and pieces of ourselves; called cari dears, by the Latins, and by the Greeks, darlings, in whom is all our delight, Eze 24:24 ; yet are they certain cares, but uncertain comforts, a

And would not be comforted ] This confutes him in Plautus, that said, Mulier nulla dolet cordicitus ex animo, these mourned beyond measure, utterly refusing to be comforted by any fair words of the murderers excusing the matter (likely) to the miserable mothers, and promising amends from the king by some other means, or by any other way. But immoderate sorrow for losses past hope of recovery is more sullen than useful: our stomach may be bewrayed by it, not our wisdom; and although something we may yield to nature in these eases, yet nothing to impatience.

Because they were not ] A just judgment of God upon them for their unnaturalness to the Son of God, whom they shut out into a stable. The dulness and dissoluteness of these Bethlehemites required thus to be raised and roused up as by the sound of a trumpet or report of a musket; happy for them, if they had hearts “to bear the rod, and who had appointed, it,”Mic 6:9Mic 6:9 . But we many times mistake the cause of our misery, groping in the dark as the Sodomites, crying out upon the instrument, seldom reflecting; our minds being as ill set as our eyes, we turn neither of them inwards.

a Lambin. in Menech. Plauti,Act 1:1-26Act 1:1-26 , Scene 1. Domi domitus fui usque cum charis meis. Filius dicitur a .

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Mat 2:18 : still another prophetic reference, erem. 31:15, freely reproduced from the Sept [10] ; pathetic and poetic certainly, if the relevance be not conspicuously apparent. The evangelist introduces the prophetic passage in this case, not with , but with (Mat 2:17 ), suggesting a fulfilment not regarded as exclusive. The words, even in their original place, are highly imaginative. The scene of Rachel weeping for her children is one of several tableaux , which passed before the prophet’s eye in a vision, in a dream which, on awaking, he felt to be sweet. It was poetry to begin with, and it is poetry here. Rachel again weeps over her children; hers, because she was buried there, the prophet’s Ramah, near Gibeah, north of Jerusalem, standing for Bethlehem as far to the south. The prophetic passage did not create the massacre; the tradition of the massacre recalled to mind the prophecy, and led to its being quoted, though of doubtful appositeness in a strict sense. Jacob’s beloved wife seems to have occupied an imaginative place also in Rabbinical literature. Wnsche quotes this from the Midrasch : “Why did Jacob bury Rachel on the way to Ephratah or Bethlehem? (Gen 35:16 ). Because he foresaw that the exiles would at some future time pass that way, and he buried her there that she might pray for them” ( Beitrge , p. 11). Rachel was to the Hebrew fancy a mother for Israel in all time, sympathetic in all her children’s misfortunes.

[10] Septuagint.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Rama = Ramah in O.T.

lamentation. Greek. threnos. Occurs only here.

children. Greek plural of teknon. App-108.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Mat 2:18. , , , …-A voice was heard in Rama, lamentation and weeping and much mourning: Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be comforted, etc.) The passage is thus rendered by the LXX., Jeremiah 31(38):15:- (Cod. Alex. ) , …-A voice was heard in Rama (Cod. Al. on high) of lamentation and weeping and mourning: Rachel bewailing herself on account of her sons, and would not be comforted, etc.-, was heard) so that it reached the Lord. Jeremiah both prefixes and subjoins, Thus saith the Lord.- ,[99] lamentation and weeping and much mourning) The LXX. have , of weeping, and of lamentation, and of mourning. The original Hebrew, however, is -lamentation, weeping of bitternesses, (i.e., lamentation and bitter weeping). The shorter[100] reading of St Matthew, supported by so many versions, viz.,[101] , weeping and much mourning, agrees with this so as to express the Hebrew plural , bitternesses, by the Greek epithet , much. I used to suspect that the translators who omitted , lamentation and, had done so from the poverty of their language: but you might, with equal justice, say that the Greek copyists added these words from the LXX., from not duly weighing the force of the adjective , much, which is not found in the LXX.

[99] In his Apparatus Criticus, Bengel writes, in loc.-

[100] E. M. has the longer reading.-(I. B.)

[101] So BZabc Vulg. Hilary, 613. D is the only very ancient authority for the of the Rec. Text.-ED. 18 (- ) th. Arab. Copt. Lat. (et inde Barb. I. vel etiam Cypr. et Colbert. n. 2467), Pers. Syr. ex inopi synonymorum; Hieron. nescio an Justinus Martyr. Extat non solum apud LXX., sed etiam in Hebro. He then goes on. Inopia synonymorum laborasse, etc., as in the Gnomon, and concludes by referring the reader to that work.-(I. B.)

The Hebrew words[102] and accents[103] declare the matter more gradually (rem gradatim magis declarant), and exhibit successively,-(1.) Shrill grief indefinitely: her who mourns, and those whom she mourns, (2.) refusing the consolation offered to her; and the cause why she refused it.-The thirty-first chapter of Jeremiah is prospective to a great degree of the times of the New Testament; and so does this passage refer to this event in the New Testament history, whether Jeremiah regarded at the same time the Babylonian Captivity or not; a greater and less event of distinct periods may correspond with the single meaning of a single prediction, until the prophecy is exhausted.-, Rachel) put antonomatically for the individual daughters of Rachel and other mothers, who thus had sons of pangs [Benoni].-Cf. Gen 35:18. The sons of Rachel are named: the sons of other mothers are understood at the same time, as in 1Co 10:1, the Gentiles are also included under the fathers of the Jews. The infants of Bethlehem might also be called sons of Rachel, on account of the tomb of Rachel mentioned in Gen 35:19, as being near that town: just as the Samaritans (Joh 4:12) called Jacob their father, because they lived in the same place where he had formerly dwelt. But Rama did also belong to the tribe of Benjamin (see Jos 18:25), who was the son of Rachel. It is quite conceivable that the assassins despatched so suddenly by Herod to Bethlehem, may have proceeded even as far as Rama, as the towns were very near together: see Jdg 19:2; Jdg 19:9; Jdg 19:13; Ezr 2:21; Ezr 2:26 : from which circumstance Jeremiah, a priest from the land of Benjamin, pointed it out as the limit of the massacre.-, weeping) i.e., , weeps, a Hebraism.- , refused to receive consolation) A phrase which expresses intense grief.- , they are not) Thus, in the S. V. of Gen 42:36, we read , , Joseph is not, Simeon is not); and in 1Ki 20:40, , he was not) in the Hebrew , he is not, in the singular number used distributively. The mothers mourn each especially their own, or even their only sons; for even only children would, in this case, be expressed in the plural number: the slaughtered infants were of two years old, or a little under, so that a single mother could not easily be deprived of more than one. The event was accurately foretold. Others refer the singular number to the Messiah, whom they suppose the women to have imagined slain, or mourned as banished.

[102] Sermo.-(I. B.)

[103] The design of the accents in general is, to show the rhythmical members of the verses in the Old Testament text. But, as such, the use is twofold-viz., a. To show the logical relation of each word to the whole sentence: b. to mark the tone syllable to each word. In respect to the former, they serve as signs of interpunction; in respect to the latter, as signs of the tone or accent. The use of the accents as signs of interpunction is somewhat complicated, since they serve not merely to separate the members of a sentence, like our period, colon, and comma, but also as marks of connection.-Gesenius, Heb. Gr. sec. 15, q.v.-(I. B.)

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Rama: Jer 31:15, Ramah

lamentation: Jer 4:31, Jer 9:17-21, Eze 2:10, Rev 8:13

Rachel: Gen 35:16-20

would: Gen 37:30, Gen 37:33-35, Gen 42:36, Job 14:10

Reciprocal: Gen 5:24 – he was not Gen 29:17 – Rachel Gen 35:19 – Ephrath Gen 42:13 – one is not Gen 48:7 – Rachel Neh 11:33 – Ramah Isa 22:4 – labour

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN

In Rama was there a voice heard.

Mat 2:18

These little victims were but the first sacrificed by the powers of evil to retard the progress of the kingdom of light. Cruelty and hatred compassed the death of the King Himself, and since then saints have suffered, blood has been shed, tears have flowed, and martyrs have witnessed by their deaths.

I. The tragedy of child-suffering.It reminds us, too, of the ever-present tragedy of child-sufferingthe suffering which results from the misdoing, cruelty, or neglect of adult people. How sad it all is, and we realise that, like the tragedy of old, it is all the fruit of sin! How many victims are sacrificed, year by year, by the neglect or positive ill-treatment of vicious and cruel parents! Parents so sodden by drink and other demoralising indulgence that natural affection has died within them, or only shines fitfully, making the periods of neglect, violence, and cruelty all the more horrible by contrast.

II. What can be done.Thank God, much is now being done to alleviate the suffering of little children. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children does much to prevent the grosser forms of cruelty and ill-treatment. Our Waifs and Strays Society rescues children from the streets and their demoralising influences; and all over the land orphanages, founded by God-fearing Christian people, have been erected that little ones left unprovided for may not be without homes. We may do much to alleviate this suffering, to stop this continual moral and actual slaying of little innocents, by supporting by every means in our power the carrying of the Gospel, the work of our Church, in the dark places in our cities.

III. The true remedy.This is the true remedy: to lift up Jesus, the Friend for little children; to reach parents by our Temperance Societies and other reforming parish agencies; and so sweeten and make wholesome the home influences. And this is work which we can do much to aid, both by personal service and by giving of our means. There is, too, the work of the Sunday schools, and other parish agencies for directly influencing the little child-lives, and preventing the soul-slaying which is even more terrible than cruelty and death to the body. Very much is done in this way for the young mind by filling it with the beautiful story of the Gospel, to prevent its poisoning by the vitiated atmosphere of a vicious home-life.

The Rev. H. G. Wheeler.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

2:18

Verse 18. The context of the statement in Jeremiah had to do with the sorrows of ancient Israel at the hands of the heathen nations. Many of them had been slain or otherwise mistreated by these foreign people. Rama (or Ramah) was near Jerusalem and Rachel was buried in that district. She was an important “mother in Israel” and her name Is used to represent the mothers in Israel generally. Following a practice of the Old Testament prophets in gotng from their time to that of the New Testament for a like occurrence, Jeremiah looked forward to another when the near kin of Rachel would be cruelly mistreated. This was done when Herod caused so many of the Jewish children to be slain, hence the reference of Matthew to that prophecy of Jeremiah.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Mat 2:18. In Ramah, etc. The words lamentation and are found in the Septuagint, but to be omitted here. The passage refers primarily to the leading of the Israelites captive to Babylon. Rachel, the ancestress of Benjamin, buried near Bethlehem, is represented as issuing from the hem on the road to Jerusalem. See the accompanying cut of the mosque, with the village of Bet Jala in the background. Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans alike revere the spot, which is much frequented by pilgrims. The wail of Rachel is renewed in the Church as often as the witnesses to the truth are put to death by carnal and worldly men, who profess to be the representatives of the Church. (Lange.)

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Mat 2:18. In Rama was a voice heard Rachel weeping for her children Benjamin, it is well known, was the son of Rachel: his posterity, therefore, who inhabited Ramah and the parts adjacent, sprung from her, and, according to the Scripture language, were her children. The slaughter of the inhabitants of Bethlehem, also, might with propriety enough be termed the slaughter of her children; she being buried there, Gen 35:19, and the Bethlehemites being the offspring of her husband and sister. It is by a very striking and beautiful figure of speech, by which she is here represented as awaked by the cries of the infants, and as rising out of her grave, and bitterly bewailing her little ones, who lie slaughtered in heaps around her. Because they are not That is, are not among men, are taken away from the land of the living, are dead. The same phrase is frequently used in the same sense in the Old Testament. Now, as it was not true of those that were carried into captivity in Jeremiahs days, that they were not, in this sense, why should it be thought strange that so literal a completion of the prophecy as took place in the days of Herod, should be referred to by the Holy Ghost? Here observe, The first crown of martyrdom for Jesus was won by these infant sufferers, and the honour to which they are advanced infinitely repays the short pains they endured. Some have questioned the authenticity of the evangelists narrative of the slaughter of these infants, on account of the diabolical wickedness of the action; but the following account, given by Prideaux, of Herods last deed and purpose, will convince any one that there was nothing too bad for that miserable man to perpetrate: Knowing the hatred the Jews had for him, he concluded aright, that there would be no lamentations at his death, but rather gladness and rejoicing all the country over. To prevent this, he framed a project and resolution in his mind, which was one of the most horrid and wicked, perchance, that ever entered into the heart of man. For, having issued out a summons to all the principal Jews of his kingdom, commanding their appearance at Jericho, (where he then lay,) on pain of death, at a day appointed; on their arrival thither, he shut them all up in the circus, and then, sending for Salerno his sister, and Alexas her husband, commanded them that, as soon as he was dead, they should send in the soldiers upon them, and put them all to the sword. For this, said he, will provide mourning for my funeral all over the land, and make the Jews in every family lament my death, whether they will or not: and when he had adjured them hereto, some hours after, he died. But they, not being wicked enough to do what they had been solemnly made to promise, rather chose to break their obligation, than to make themselves the executioners of so bloody and horrid a design.

Since Josephus, who has given us the history of Herods transactions at large, has taken no notice of the slaughter of these children, some have been ready to suspect his fidelity as an historian, or, which is worse, that of St. Matthew. But there is no need to do either. For surely it is not to be supposed, that an historian lessens his credibility as often as he relates the facts omitted by another; or passes over those recorded by another. For it is hardly possible it should be otherwise, unless one should exactly copy from another. Besides, Josephus has so many instances exactly similar to this, and those so remarkable, that he might think it needless to add this. For, as Is. Vossius, a man by no means superstitious or credulous, has observed, after so many examples of Herods cruelty at Jerusalem and through all Judea, after so many sons, so many wives, relations, and friends, cut off by a variety of torments, it does not seem to have been a great thing to have also put to death the infants of a town or village, with the territory belonging to it, the slaughter of which could not have been very great in so small a place, especially since not all, but only the male infants were destroyed, and of these only such as were under two years old. What Tacitus has observed, Anal. Mat 6:7, is very applicable here: I am not ignorant, says he, that the dangers and punishments undergone by many have been omitted by most writers, either because they were tired of relating such a multitude of instances, or feared that the things which had been wearisome and disagreeable to them would be equally so to their readers. Wetstein. Indeed, Josephus was not old enough to remember it himself, and if he did not find it in the Memoirs of Nicholas of Damascus, (that flattering historian, of whom we know he made great use in compiling the life of Herod,) he might be unwilling to introduce it, even if he were particularly acquainted with it; lest the occasion might have led him to mention what, generally, at least, he is solicitous to decline I mean, Christian affairs. It is sufficient that this cruelty of Herod is preserved in Macrobius, who, in a chapter concerning the jests of Augustus upon others, and of others upon him, says, When he heard that among those male infants about two years old, which Herod the king of the Jews ordered to be slain in Syria, one of his sons was also murdered, he said, It is better to be Herods hog than his son. The saying alludes to his professing Judaism, which forbade his killing swine, or eating their flesh; therefore, his hog would have been safe where his son lost his life.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Verse 18

Rama; a small, town near Bethlehem. The king of Babylon overran Judea, assembled the Jewish captives in Rama, and thence drove them, in chains, into Babylonish captivity. The prophet Jeremiah, in the passage here referred to, represents Rachel, the mother of Benjamin, as rising from the weeping over the woes of her descendants. The words are quoted here, not as prophetic language, originally referring to this case, but as strikingly applicable to it.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

2:18 In Rama was there {m} a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, {n} Rachel weeping [for] her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.

(m) A voice of lamenting, weeping and howling.

(n) That is to say, All who live around Bethlehem: for Rachel, Jacob’s wife who died in childbirth, was buried by the road that leads to this town, which is also called Ephratah, because of the fruitfulness of the soil, and the plentifulness of corn.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes