Rachel's Weeping

“When the magi had departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you.  Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.’ Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt.  He stayed there until the death of Herod, that what the Lord had said through the prophet might be fulfilled: ‘Out of Egypt I called my son.’ 

When Herod realized that he had been deceived by the magi, he became furious.  He ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under in accordance with the time he had ascertained from the magi.  Then was fulfilled what had been said through Jeremiah the prophet: ‘A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be consoled, since they were no more.” [Matthew 2:13-18]

We know the story of the magi and the murdered Bethlehem children, but do we know about Ramah and Rachel mentioned by Jeremiah in his prophecy on which the Bethlehem massacre was based?  For most of us, probably not.  

After the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem in the 6th century BC, Jewish captives we imprisoned in Ramah before being deported to Mesopotamia.  Ramah is the place not far from Bethlehem where Rachel’s tomb was traditionally venerated.   Matthew, poetically, has Rachel weep from her grave over the boys murdered by Herod at the end of the first century BC.

Rachel was the wife of the Jacob (along with Leah his second wife).  The Patriarch Joseph was born of Jacob and Rachel.  Joseph’s was an extraordinary birth because Rachel was barren until God “remembered her and opened her womb.”  Before that opening, Rachel cried out to Jacob, “Give me children, or else I die.”  After a while Rachel died when giving birth to her second son with her last cry naming him Benoni meaning “son of sorrow.”   Jacob called him Benjamin meaning “the son of the right hand.”
 

With Leah, Rachel had helped to build the house of Israel.   Therefore, Rachel was symbolically recalled by Jeremiah  through her cry for children and was considered prophetic by Matthew for the slaughter of the innocents when Christ was born.

It’s important for us to understand the Old Testament and how it was used by Gospel writers when telling their stories about Jesus – the Christ.  It's also important for us to weep for children around the world being subjected to the horrors of war, abuse, and abandonment. 

Deacon David Pierce