Matthew 2:18, commentary and pictures

In Rama was heard the lamentation of the mothers of Bethlehem and its region over the young children cruelly slaughtered by Herod's soldiers. Rachel weeping and refusing comfort is those bereaved mothers mourning inconsolably because their children are dead and gone. This fulfilled what Jeremiah had spoken in prophetic vision about six hundred years before, applying his image of lamentation and inconsolable sorrow to this calamity. The massacre was a fruitless attempt to destroy the infant Saviour as King of Israel, provoked by proud Jewish boasting of an earthly empire that stirred Herod's envy and hatred, yet God heralded the birth to the shepherds and directed Joseph to preserve Christ's life. It means more than the wailing of Bethlehem, for it is the cry of humanity sitting unsolaced in the shadow of death, thirsting for the living God and longing for the coming Deliverer, with comfort in the promise that the lost children will return from the land of the enemy.

Bethlehem's Mourning Fulfilled

Herod's soldiers cruelly slaughtered innocent young children in Bethlehem and its surrounding region. Rachel weeping and refusing comfort is the bereaved mothers mourning their murdered children, inconsolable because the children are dead and gone. The mourning fulfills what Jeremiah spoke in prophetic vision about six hundred years earlier, applying his image of lamentation and inconsolable sorrow to this calamity. What Jeremiah saw beforehand was fulfilled in the grief that filled the homes of those whose children were killed.

The massacre was an attempt to destroy the infant Saviour as King of Israel. It was a fruitless effort against Christ and a crime against God's servants. God heralded Jesus' birth to the shepherds by angels and directed Joseph to preserve the infant's life from the slaughter.

The attack was provoked by Jewish pride and false teaching that Christ would reign over an earthly empire in unsurpassed glory, which misrepresented His mission and stirred Herod's envy and hatred. Satan purposed by that proud boasting and lofty ideas to destroy Christ but failed, and the evil rebounded on the Jews themselves, filling their own homes with mourning. The calamity humbled the nation as punishment permitted by God amid its pride, ambition, and wickedness. Herod did not long survive his cruel work but soon died a fearful death, compelled to yield to a power he could not turn aside or overcome.

Years later, when Joseph and Mary lost twelve-year-old Jesus on the return from Jerusalem, their memory of that massacre made their weary return to Jerusalem sad and fearful.

Wider Meaning and Comfort

The lament reaches beyond the wailing of Bethlehem's mothers to the cry of the great heart of humanity carried across the centuries. It is the voice of a world sitting unsolaced in the region and shadow of death, when faith had grown dim and death stood as a dread mystery with uncertainty and gloom beyond. Yet even then souls thirsted for knowledge of the living God and for assurance of life beyond the grave, looking with longing eyes for the coming Deliverer who would dispel the darkness and make the mystery of the future plain.

In the world to come an innumerable company of little ones accompanies the martyrs, and the red hem upon their garments marks them as one with Rachel's children for whom there was lamentation. For grieving mothers there is comfort in the promise that the children they have lost will come back from the land of the enemy. The image of Rachel weeping for her children and refusing comfort because they are not gives fitting expression to a mother's deepest sorrow over children who are gone, even when it is applied where the children still live.

Refusing comfort also describes a mourning so intense that the bereaved will not be consoled, as in grief after William's death. When such sorrow is repeatedly dwelt upon and allowed to grow, it harms health instead of turning toward gratitude for God's mercy and hope in the heavenly future of the one who has died.