Matthew 2:16-18 Rachel weeping

Matthew 2:16-18 Rachel weeping: In this third fulfillment passage, Matthew compares the murder of the young boys in Bethlehem to the Rachel weeping in her tomb for the captives about to be deported to Babylon. In both events, all hope seems lost.

Review

Matthew made the point that Jesus is the Christ.  He is that one descendant of Abraham and descendant of David who will fulfill the promises given to them. 

God caused Mary, a virgin, to miraculously conceive a son.  Then God acted to protect that child by speaking to her fiancée, Joseph.  Assuming Mary was unfaithful, Joseph planned to quietly divorce her, but God speaks to Joseph in a dream.  God tells Joseph Mary has not been unfaithful and that her son is the promised Messiah who will save his people from sins.  Joseph obediently takes Mary as his wife and accepts Jesus as his own son, making Jesus his legal heir and putting Jesus legally in the line of David.

The wise men from Babylon go to Herold seeking the child who has been born the king of the Jews.  Herod asked them to tell him where the child is after they found the child. God warned the magi in a dream not to return to Herod, so they left via another route.  Then God warns Joseph in a dream to flee to Egypt and remain there until after Herod’s death.

Since the wise men did not return, Herod now has no way of knowing where the child is, so he devises an evil plan to get rid of the child.

Convictions I hold

• I trust Matthew. I do not think Matthew is lying, mistaken or using sloppy exegesis.
• Fulfill has two meanings: 1) predictive prophecy and 2) something is show in its fullest example or expression. Matthew frequently uses fulfill in this second sense.
• Matthew expects his readers to be familiar with the Old Testament.
• Matthew expects his readers to understand the strong theological connection between the nation of Israel and the Messiah. God as the author and creator of history orchestrated events in the life of the nation of Israel and events in the life of Jesus to reveal this theological connection between them. 

Matthew 2:16-18 Rachel weeping

¹⁶Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men.  ¹⁷Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah:  ¹⁸“A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.”  – Matthew 2:16-18

Matthew quotes from the prophet Jeremiah who is referring to Rachel.

Rachel

God promised that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through Abraham’s descendants.  Abraham’s son Isaac inherited the promise.  Isaac had two sons. His son Jacob inherited the promise. 

When Jacob was a young man, his parents wanted to get him out of town.  because 1) his jealous brother wanted to kill him; and 2) they didn’t want him marrying any of the local girls. 

They sent him to their out-of-town family, the house of Laban.  Laban is Jacob’s uncle, the brother of his mother, Rebekah. There Jacob meet’s Laban’s daughter, Rachel, and he is smitten. 

¹⁶Now Laban had two daughters. The name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel.  ¹⁷Leah’s eyes were weak, but Rachel was beautiful in form and appearance.  ¹⁸Jacob loved Rachel. And he said, “I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.”  ¹⁹Laban said, “It is better that I give her to you than that I should give her to any other man; stay with me.”  ²⁰So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her.  ²¹Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife that I may go in to her, for my time is completed.”  ²²So Laban gathered together all the people of the place and made a feast.  ²³But in the evening he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob, and he went in to her.  ²⁴(Laban gave his female servant Zilpah to his daughter Leah to be her servant.)  ²⁵And in the morning, behold, it was Leah! And Jacob said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? Did I not serve with you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me?”  ²⁶Laban said, “It is not so done in our country, to give the younger before the firstborn.  ²⁷Complete the week of this one, and we will give you the other also in return for serving me another seven years.”  ²⁸Jacob did so, and completed her week. Then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife.  ²⁹(Laban gave his female servant Bilhah to his daughter Rachel to be her servant.)  ³⁰So Jacob went in to Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah, and served Laban for another seven years.  – Genesis 29:16-30

• Rachel finds herself in this situation: She is the love of Jacob’s life, but she has no biological children of her own.
• Her sister with whom she shares her husband has a number of sons by Jacob.
• Her maidservant has a number of sons by Jacob and even her sister’s maidservant has a number of sons by Jacob. 

When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister. She said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I shall die!”  – Genesis 30:1

• Finally, God grants Rachel’s request. She gives birth to a son, Joseph (Genesis 30:22-24).
• Jacob and his family travel from Bethel to Bethlehem. On that journey Rachel gives birth to another son, Benjamin, but ironically and tragically she dies in childbirth (Genesis 35:16-20).
• Rachel is buried on the road between Bethel, Bethlehem & Jerusalem.

• Jerusalem is roughly 5 miles north of Bethlehem.
• Ramah is roughly 5 miles north of Jerusalem.
• Bethel is roughly 5 miles north of Ramah.
• Map: Travels of Jacob (shows Bethel & Jerusalem)
• Map: The Kingdoms of Israel and Judah (shows Ramah)

Rachel was the wife of Jacob.  She desperately wanted children.  God finally gives her 2 sons, Jacob and Benjamin.  She dies giving birth to Benjamin and is buried between Bethel and Bethlehem, which put her tomb near Ramah.

Jeremiah

• Jeremiah began his ministry around 627 BC as the political world was falling apart with the decline of Assyria.  
• The Assyrians had conquered the northern kingdom of Israel and taken them into captivity.  The nation of Judah is still standing as a vassal state of Assyria.
• As the Assyrians start losing power, two major political powers (Egypt & Babylon) strive to occupy the power vacuum left by the weakened Assyrians.  
• In 586 BC, the Babylonians conquered the southern kingdom.  They leveled Jerusalem and deported the captives.  They took the captives from the Jerusalem to Ramah to get them ready for deportation (Jeremiah 40:1).
• At the time Jeremiah is writing, Rachel has been dead a long time. 
• Jeremiah is speaking metaphorically. If Rachel knew what was going on, Rachel would be weeping.  Jeremiah is not referring to a literal historical event.
• Rachel is the mother of two of the tribes of Israel, but as the love of Jacob’s life, she is symbolically the mother of all the tribes.
• Rachel had direct descendants in both the southern and northern kingdoms.

Jeremiah paints a vivid metaphorical picture involving history, geography and theology. 

• Geographically, Rachel’s tomb is near where the deportation takes place. 
• Historically, all of Rachel’s hopes for her children have been crushed, as all her children have been taken into exile. 
• Theologically, this is not just about the downfall of 1 nation because God promised to bless all the nations of the world through Israel.

As the captives are gathering for deportation in Ramah, they metaphorically hear Rachel weeping in her tomb for her lost children.  The children of her son Joseph (northern kingdom) have already been taken to exile by the Assyrians. Now the children of her son Benjamin (southern kingdom) are going into exile in Babylon. 

We find this quote in some of the most hopeful sections of Jeremiah. For example:

¹¹For the LORD has ransomed Jacob and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him.  ¹²They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the LORD, over the grain, the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; their life shall be like a watered garden, and they shall languish no more.  ¹³Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old shall be merry. I will turn their mourning into joy; I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.  ¹⁴I will feast the soul of the priests with abundance, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, declares the LORD.”  ¹⁵Thus says the LORD: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.”  ¹⁶Thus says the LORD: “Keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears, for there is a reward for your work, declares the LORD, and they shall come back from the land of the enemy.  ¹⁷There is hope for your future, declares the LORD, and your children shall come back to their own country. -Jeremiah 31:11-16

• Jeremiah 30:3-10
• Jeremiah 31:1
• Jeremiah 31:31-24
• Jeremiah 32:36-41
• Jeremiah 33:14-16

Jeremiah tells us 3 things

1. Both the northern and the southern kingdom will be regathered in the land.
2. They will undergo a spiritual restoration.
3. The throne of David will be established once again. But this time God is going to change the heart of his people such that they will not break the Covenant. 

Here’s the picture Jeremiah paints,

• Rachel, the one who longs to have children and died in childbirth, lies in her grave near Ramah.
• Years later, near her grave the descendants of her children are gathered as captives for deportation.  At Ramah the captives metaphorically hear Rachel weeping for her lost children. It seems like the end of all her hopes. 
• Yet God says be comforted because your children will once again be gathered in the land.
• God will change their hearts such that they will remain faithful.
• God will give them a Davidic king who will rule in peace and righteousness over all the earth.

Matthew

¹⁶Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men.  ¹⁷Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah:  ¹⁸“A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.”  – Matthew 2:16-18

• From the history and the contextm we can conclude that Jeremiah did not mean to predict that children would be killed in Bethlehem.  That is not what Rachel is weeping over in Jeremiah.  She is weeping because the Babylonians have devastated the hopes and future of her children by conquering Jerusalem.
• Each child of Bethlehem died because he might have been the Messiah and Herod did not know for certain who it was.
• In Jeremiah, Rachel is metaphorically weeping because her hopes for her children seem to have ended.  A foreign nation has conquered them and toppled the throne of David. 
• In Matthew’s time, the ultimate hope of the nation is again being threatened.  Without the Messiah, none of the promises can come about and they have no hope. 
• If the Babylonian exile seemed like the end of all Israel’s hopes, the death of the Messiah would truly be the end of all Israel’s hopes.  And yet, just as in Jeremiah God’s promises still stand.
• God acted to protect the young Messiah and he will keep his promises to Israel.  The hope of Rachel’s children lives and will be fulfilled.
• The attempt to kill the Messiah is the fullest expression of Israel’s lost and helpless state.  Yet the deliverance of the Messiah will lead to the ultimate full true deliverance of Israel. Rachel can rejoice.

Please listen to the podcast for more detail and explanation.

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Series: Gospel of Matthew: Behold, the King!

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Podcast season 18, episode 6