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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, Mat_2:18, 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 Mat_2:18, 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, Jos_18:25 1Ki_15:17. Rachel was, buried betwixt it and Bethlehem, Gen_35:19 1Sa_10:2; and it was also the place where Nebuzaradan, after he had taken Jerusalem, disposed of his prisoners, as we read, Jer_40:1 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. In Ramah therefore a voice was heard, that is, in Canaan, and particularly in Ramah, where Nebuzaradan, Jer_40:1, disposed of the prisoners he had taken, setting some at liberty, (as Jeremiah in particular,) ordering others to death, and carrying the rest away to Babylon, which caused a bitter weeping and lamentation.
Rachel weeping for her children: Rachel is here brought in, having been buried near that place, as if she were risen up from the grave, and lamented the Jewish nation, which came out of her loins, (for so Benjamin did, which was one of the two tribes that made the kingdom of Judah,) all the people of which tribe are properly enough called her children. Rachel here signifieth all the Benjamitish women who descended from Rachel.
Refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not; and, like a passionate woman, she refused all arguments of comfort, because her children either were not absolutely, being slain by the pestilence, the famine, and the sword of the king of Babylon, or were no longer her children, being transplanted and removed into Babylon. So as I take this text literally and primarily to refer to the lamentation for the miseries the people suffered, upon the king of Babylon’s taking the city; to which mourning Matthew alludeth, there being a lamentation like this when Herod caused the infants of two years old to be slain in Bethlehem, and in the coasts about Bethlehem, of which Ramah was one.