Matthew 2:16

Matthew 2:16. The beginning of the persecutions which culminated in the crucifixion.

Then Herod when he saw that he was trifled with, i.e., duped, according to his view of the case, by the Magi, was exceeding wroth. The murderer of his own wife (Mariamne) and two sons (Alexander and Aristobulus) would easily murder other children in his anger. The emperor Augustus made a Greek witticism on the cruelty of Herod to his sons, and Josephus records that he ordered a number of the chief men to be put to death as soon as he expired, that there might be no rejoicing at his own decease. Josephus, however, does not mention the massacre at Bethlehem. It may have been unknown to him, since the sending forth may have been in secret, as was the questioning of the Magi (Matthew 2:7), or unnoticed among the many horrible crimes of Herod. ‘It will only be right, in estimating the value of the facts related by this Evangelist, to remember that the more forced in some cases appears' the connection which he maintains between the facts he mentions and the prophecies he applies to them, the less probable is it that the former were invented on the foundation of the latter. Such incidents as the journey into Egypt and the mas grave and lamenting, thus indicating extreme calamity. The sound of her lamentations is carried beyond Jerusalem, and heard at Ramah (the name probably means ‘high'), a fortress of Israel on the frontier toward Judah, where the captives were collected. The figure becomes a typical prophecy of the grief in Bethlehem. Rachel was the ancestress of the tribe of Benjamin, which was always identified in fortune with Judah. She well represents the mothers of Bethlehem, near to which she died in child-birth and was buried. Her tomb, on the site of which there is now a mosque, lies about half a mile north of Bethlesacre of the children, must have been well-ascertained facts before any one would think of finding a prophetic announcement of them in the words of Hosea and Jeremiah, which the author quotes and applies to them.' (Godet)

Male children, as the Greek implies.

In all its borders, ‘coasts' is now applied to sea borders alone. The neighborhood was included that there might be no escape, just as the age, two years, was the extreme limit within which the child could have been born, according to the time, or period, which he had exactly learned of the Magi. As children under the age of two years were slain, it is probable that the star had not appeared so long a time before the visit of the Magi. Cruelty here overran the limits of space and time alike. These infant martyrs were much celebrated in the ancient church, especially on the feast of Innocents (December 28).