Rachel Refusing to Be Comforted
Matthew’s Gospel tells us of the slaughter of the innocents at Bethlehem:
“When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.”
Out of all the things Matthew could say next, he chooses to use a heartbreaking quotation from the prophet Jeremiah:
“Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
’A voice is heard in Ramah,
weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.’”
Jeremiah is speaking of a time of grief and horror in Israel, and he is using the story of Rachel from Genesis to make his point. Rachel is the beloved second wife of the Patriarch Jacob; she compares herself jealously to her fertile sister Leah, who has four strapping sons before Rachel is able to conceive. Rachel ends up having a son named Joseph, and then dies in childbirth as she is laboring to deliver her second son, Benjamin. (The baby survives.)
Jeremiah poetically recalls Rachel’s suffering and uses Rachel to represent all of Israel; we the readers imagine a woman in difficult labor, drawing her last breath in screams and terror.
Matthew draws upon Jeremiah’s screaming image for his understated and piercing commentary on the slaughter of the innocents at Bethlehem:
“Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.’”
“Rachel…refusing to be comforted.”
I’ve always thought that those lines were the heartbreakingly right way to address the murders and the misery at Bethlehem—not with a sentiment or reflection or attempt to do anything with the horror, but with just a simple statement: there is nothing at that moment that will bring any comfort or relief from the living nightmare.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us.