Jeremiah 31:15

The mourning which took place at Ramah, whether on account of some unrecorded butchery there on the part of the Chaldean conquerors, or in reference to their general cruelty to the exiles there assembled for deportation to Babylon (see Jeremiah 40:1), is referred to by St. Matthew (Matthew 2:17.) as a forecast of the wailing at the slaughter of the Innocents by Herod. Rahel] the appropriateness of calling upon Rachel to weep in Ramah consists in this, that she, the one of Jacob's wives who had so ardently longed for children and the mother of Joseph and so of Ephraim and of Manasseh (whose lot was with Judah), should lament the overthrow of her offspring in a conspicuous border town of the two kingdoms, with both of which she was thus immediately connected.