Jeremiah 31:15

Thus saith the Lord, a voice was heard in Ramah,.... Which signifies a high place; hence the Targum paraphrases it, "in the high place of the world;'' and so the Vulgate Latin version, "in a high

Thus saith the LORD; A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not.

Interpreters are much divided in the sense of these words, whether they should refer to the slaughter of the Jews belonging to the ten tribes, upon their being captivated by the Assyrians, or to the slaughter of the Jews, upon the siege and taking of the city by the king of Babylon, or to Herod’ s killing the infants in Bethlehem. Certain it is, the evangelist, , applieth them unto the latter; but whether the evangelist’ s application of it be as a literal fulfilling of the prophecy, or by way of allusion, or no, is the question. Those that think that it is primarily to be understood of the slaughter of the infants, urge, 1. That , so applies it. 2. That women’ s mourning for children seems rather to be for the loss of infants, (as was there,) than expressive of the mourning of all sorts of people, in a general desolation. 3. That the place of the mourning seems to hint it; for Ramah was near to Bethlehem, and contained under the coasts about Bethlehem, mentioned by the evangelist. 4. The words because they were not they think make for them; for by being carried into captivity, they did not cease to be, though they ceased to be in that happy estate they were in before. 5. Because they think that this is here propounded as a sign of his coming, upon whose coming these promises of felicity to the Jews should be fulfilled. These reasons are not unanswerable; for, 1. Matthew may apply it only by way of allusion, speaking of such a providence, when such a thing should happen as happened before; in which sense particular texts of Scripture are in Scripture often said to be fulfilled, though they had their fulfilling before. 2. Rachel here doth not signify a single person, no, nor a particular sex, but is brought in as a common parent, lamenting the loss of her offspring. 3. Ramah was indeed near Bethlehem, but it was a city in the tribe of Benjamin, . Rachel was, buried betwixt it and Bethlehem, ; and it was also the place where Nebuzaradan, after he had taken Jerusalem, disposed of his prisoners, as we read, 4. Though the greater part of the Jews were not slain, but carried into captivity; yet doubtless many were slain, and those left alive were not as to her, being now carried out of Canaan into a strange land. 5. Although the promises in this chapter made to the Jews were more eminently and fully made good under the kingdom of Christ; yet it may be doubted whether any of these promises were primarily and solely fulfilled to them under the kingdom of Christ, but literally before that time, though more fully and largely then.

Jeremiah 31:15 Thus saith the LORD; A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, [and] bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they [were] not.Ver. 15. A voice was heard in Ramah.] It was once, when the poor captives were carried that way to Babylon, the mothers bitterly bewailing their Luctuosam faeunditatem. It was also another time, when Herod barbarously butchered the babes of Bethlehem. But now the case is altered, joy is restored, &c. Rachel weeping for her children.] An elegant personification.

(15) A voice was heard in Ramah.—The sharp contrast between this and the exulting joy of the previous verse shows that we are entering on a new section which repeats in altered form the substance of the foregoing, presenting in succession the same pictures of present woe and future gladness. The prophet sees first the desolation of the captivity. Rachel, as the mother of Joseph, and therefore of Ephraim, becomes the ideal representative of the northern kingdom. Her voice is heard in Ramah (possibly, as in 1 Samuel 22:6, Ezekiel 16:24, and in the Vulgate here, not as the name of a locality, but in its general meaning, from a mountain height) weeping for the children who have been slain or carried into exile. When used elsewhere as a proper name, the noun always has the article. Here it stands without it. If Ramah be definitely one of the places of that name, known fully as Ramathaim-zophim (1 Samuel 1:1; 1 Samuel 1:19), it is probably that within the borders of Benjamin (Joshua 18:25), not far from Rachel’s sepulchre (1 Samuel 10:2). She, even in her grave, weeps for her children. The mention of Ramah in Isaiah 10:29 seems to indicate that it was the scene of some special massacre in the progress of the Assyrian invader, in the reign of Hezekiah; and Jeremiah may possibly refer to it, as well as to some later atrocity, in connection with that of the Chaldæans (comp. Jeremiah 40:1), over which Rachel, in her sepulchre near Bethlehem, is supposed to weep. Possibly also the meaning of the name Rachel (= ewe) may have added something to the force of the prophet’s description. He hears the cry of the ewe on the hill-top bleating for her lambs. The passage has gained a special significance as being cited by St. Matthew (Matthew 2:18), as fulfilled in Herod’s massacre of the infants of Bethlehem. On the nature of this fulfilment see Note on Matthew 2:18.

Verse 15. A voice was heard in Ramah] The Ramah mentioned here, (for there were several towns of this name,) was situated in the tribe of Benjamin, about six or seven miles from Jerusalem. Near this place Rachel was buried; who is here, in a beautiful figure of poetry, represented as coming out of her grave, and lamenting bitterly for the loss of her children, none of whom presented themselves to her view, all being slain or gone into exile. St. Matthew, who is ever fond of accommodation, applies these words, Matthew 2:17-18, to the massacre of the children at Bethlehem. That is, they were suitable to that occasion, and therefore he so applied them; but they are not a prediction of that event.

7–15. These vv. are probably on the whole post-exilic, having close affinities with 2 Isaiah.

The religious character of the restoration of the ten tribes. Chastisement brought repentance, and with it forgiveness; therefore God decrees their restoration.

15. A voice was heard — This strophe (Jeremiah 31:15-22) brings to view another side of Israel’s restoration. It was to be not merely political and external, but internal and spiritual.