Matthew 2:18

: still another prophetic reference, erem. 31:15, freely reproduced from the Sept [10]; pathetic and poetic certainly, if the relevance be not conspicuously apparent. The evangelist introduces the prophetic passage in this case, not with ἵνα, but with τότε (Matthew 2:17), suggesting a fulfilment not regarded as exclusive. The words, even in their original place, are highly imaginative. The scene of Rachel weeping for her children is one of several tableaux, which passed before the prophet's eye in a vision, in a dream which, on awaking, he felt to be sweet. It was poetry to begin with, and it is poetry here. Rachel again weeps over her children; hers, because she was buried there, the prophet's Ramah, near Gibeah, north of Jerusalem, standing for Bethlehem as far to the south. The prophetic passage did not create the massacre; the tradition of the massacre recalled to mind the prophecy, and led to its being quoted, though of doubtful appositeness in a strict sense. Jacob's beloved wife seems to have occupied an imaginative place also in Rabbinical literature. Wünsche quotes this from the Midrasch : “Why did Jacob bury Rachel on the way to Ephratah or Bethlehem? (Genesis 35:16). Because he foresaw that the exiles would at some future time pass that way, and he buried her there that she might pray for them” (Beiträge, p. 11). Rachel was to the Hebrew fancy a mother for Israel in all time, sympathetic in all her children's misfortunes.

[10] Septuagint.