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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mat_2:16-18
16Then when Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he became very enraged, and sent and slew all the male children who were in Bethlehem and all its vicinity, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the magi. 17Then what had been spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled:
18" A voice was heard in Ramah,
Weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children;
And she refused to be comforted,
Because they were no more."
Mat_2:16 "slew all the male children. . .two years old and under" Bethlehem was a small village, so probably few babies were involved in the slaughter. The phrase "two years old and under," reinforces the age of Jesus as a toddler, not an infant, at the time of the Magi's visit.
Mat_2:18 "Ramah" Mat_2:18 is a quote from Jer_31:15, but it relates to Gen_48:7. Rachel, the mother of Joseph, was associated with the Northern Ten Tribes, while her other son, Benjamin, was associated with Judah. In this one mother both houses of Israel are joined. The city of Ramah (6 miles north of Jerusalem) was the collection point for the deportation of the Northern Ten Tribes under Sargon II of Assyria in 722 b.c. Symbolically Rachel is again weeping over her lost children.
NASB "weeping and great mourning"
NKJV "lamentation, weeping and great mourning"
NRSV "wailing and loud lamentation"
TEV "sound of bitter weeping"
NJB "lamentation and bitter weeping"
This is an allusion to Jacob's favorite wife, Rachel, who had children, one of whom would be part of the northern ten tribes (after the united monarchy split in 922 b.c.) and one in the southern tribes. She is depicted as weeping over the exile of her sons (cf. Jer_31:15, referring to the exile of Israel in 722 b.c. and Judah in 586 b.c.). In this context her grief is a metaphor for the death of the children of Bethlehem by Herod.
Some uncial Greek manuscripts have one verb, " weeping" (i.e., à , B, Z); others add "mourning," which comes from the LXX of Jer_31:15 (i.e., C, D, L, W). As with so many of these manuscript variants, it makes little difference in understanding the meaning of the verse.