Matthew 2:18

18 . Jeremiah 31:15 , in LXX. Jeremiah 38:15 . In a singularly touching passage, Rachel, the mother of the tribe of Benjamin (whose tomb was close to Bethlehem: Genesis 35:19 ), is conceived of as weeping for her captive sons at Ramah—some of whom were possibly doomed to die; cp. Jeremiah 40:1 . The Evangelist pictures Rachel’s grief re-awakened by the slaughter of the infants at Bethlehem. The Ramah alluded to by Jeremiah, generally identified with the modern Er-Rama, was about 5 miles N. of Jerusalem, and in the tribe of Benjamin. There is no proof of another Ramah near Bethlehem. The analogy therefore must not be pressed.

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.

Matthew 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, Genesis 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 Jeremiah’s 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 evangelist’s narrative of the slaughter of these infants, on account of the diabolical wickedness of the action; but the following account, given by Prideaux, of Herod’s 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.

Matthew 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 ἵνα , but with τότε ( Matthew 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. Wünsche quotes this from the Midrasch : “Why did Jacob bury Rachel on the way to Ephratah or Bethlehem? ( Genesis 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” ( Beiträge , p. 11). Rachel was to the Hebrew fancy a mother for Israel in all time, sympathetic in all her children’s misfortunes. [10] Septuagint.

(18) In Rama was there a voice heard. —Here again we have an example of St. Matthew’s application of a passage that had a direct bearing upon the events of the time when it was delivered to those which his narrative had brought before him. The tomb of Rachel, “in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem” ( Genesis 35:19 ), had been, probably from the day when the “pillar” which marked it was first set up, one of the sacred places of the land. It was so in the days of Samuel ( 1Samuel 10:2 ). The language of Jeremiah in Jeremiah 31:15 , shows that it was so in his time. In his picture of the sufferings and slaughter of the captives of Judah, the image which best embodied his feelings of sorrow for his people was that of Rachel, as the great “mother in Israel,” seeing, as from the “high place” of her sepulchre (this is the meaning of the name Ramah), the shame and death of her children at the other Ramah, a few miles further to the north, and weeping for her bereavement. Historically, as we find from Jeremiah 40:1 , this was the place to which the prisoners were dragged, that Nebuzaradan might assign “such as were for death” to death, others to exile, and others again to remain as bondsmen in the land. That picture, St. Matthew felt, had been reproduced once again.

The tomb of Rachel was as familiar to the people of Bethlehem (it stands but one mile to the north of the town) as it had been in the time of Jeremiah, and the imagery was therefore as natural in the one case as the other. The Ramah of Jeremiah 40:1 . was about seven or eight miles further north, on the borders of Benjamin, but it has been thought by some geographers that the name was given to some locality nearer the tomb of Rachel.

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—These words, as they stand in Jeremiah, undoubtedly relate to the Babylonish captivity. Rachel, the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, was buried in the neighborhood of Bethlehem (Ge 35:19), where her sepulchre is still shown. She is figuratively represented as rising from the tomb and uttering a double lament for the loss of her children—first, by a bitter captivity, and now by a bloody death. And a foul deed it was. O ye mothers of Bethlehem! methinks I hear you asking why your innocent babes should be the ram caught in the thicket, while Isaac escapes. I cannot tell you, but one thing I know, that ye shall, some of you, live to see a day when that Babe of Bethlehem shall be Himself the Ram, caught in another sort of thicket, in order that your babes may escape a worse doom than they now endure. And if these babes of yours be now in glory, through the dear might of that blessed Babe, will they not deem it their honor that the tyrant's rage was exhausted upon themselves instead of their infant Lord?

Matthew 2:18 . Φωνὴ ἐν Ῥαμᾶ ἠκούσθη , θρῆνος καὶ κλαυθμὸς καὶ ὁδυρμὸς πολὺς , Ῥαχὴλ κλαίουσα τὰ τέκνα αὐτῆς · καὶ οὐκ ἤθελε παρακληθῆναι , κ . τ . λ .— 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:— Φωνὴ ἐν Ῥαμᾶ (Cod. Alex. ἐν τῆ ὑψηλῇ ) ἠκούσθη θρήνου καὶ κλαυθμοῦ καὶ ὀδυρμοῦ · Ραχηλ αποκλαιομένη ἐπὶ τῶν υἱῶν αὑτῆς · καὶ οὐκ ἠθέλησε παρακληθῆναι , κ . τ . λ .— 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.— ἠκούσθη , was heard ) so that it reached the Lord. Jeremiah both prefixes and subjoins, Thus saith the Lord .— θρῆνος καὶ κλαυθμὸς καὶ ὀδυρμὸς πολὺς ,[99] lamentation and weeping and much mourning ) The LXX. have θρῆνου καὶ κλαυθμοῦ καὶ ὀδυρμοῦ , of weeping, and of lamentation, and of mourning . The original Hebrew, however, is נהי בכי תמרורים— lamentation, weeping of bitternesses, (i.e., lamentation and bitter weeping ). The shorter[100] reading of St Matthew, supported by so many versions, viz.,[101] ΚΛΑΥΘΜῸς ΚΑῚ ὈΔΥΡΜῸς ΠΟΛῪς , weeping and much mourning , agrees with this so as to express the Hebrew plural תַּמְרוּרִים , bitternesses , by the Greek epithet πολὺς , much .

I used to suspect that the translators who omitted ΘΡῆΝΟς ΚΑῚ , 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 πολυς , 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 BZ abc Vulg. Hilary, 613. D is the only very ancient authority for the θρῆνος καὶ of the Rec. Text.—ED. “18 (— θρῆνος καὶ ) Æth. Arab. Copt. Lat . (et inde Barb. I . vel etiam Cypr . et Colbert . n. 2467), Pers. Syr . ex inopiâ synonymorum; Hieron . nescio an Justinus Martyr . Extat non solum apud LXX., sed etiam in Hebræo.” He then goes on. “Inopia synonymorum laborasse,” etc., as in the Gnomon, and concludes by referring the reader to that work.—(I.