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.” (Matthew 2:17-18)
Disturbed and crazy, paranoid, out-of-control King Herod could not tolerate a rival king. Even if that king was unknown to him, born to peasant parents, and whose coming he knew nothing about from local accounts. History is full of atrocities committed by Herod, notably on his own family members (killing his sons, strangling at least one wife) and on fellow nobles in his court. Thus, the wry saying handed down through the ages, “Better to be Herod’s pig than his son.”
To make sure he snuffed out the rival king, he acted on the information of the wise men to determine the likely time window of Jesus’ birth. Every baby boy who was born within the last two years in that specific region surrounding Jerusalem would have to die. How many would that be? Who knows…one commentator says maybe 20? The total population was small, and the number of births perhaps not large at all. But it was infanticide at a significant scale in proportion to the population.
One of the harsh truths of the advent of Jesus to earth in human flesh is that there were those then who wouldn’t tolerate his presence, nor the so-called (to them, at least) fulfillment of his promised coming. Jesus would have to go. And to make sure we “got our baby”, Herod will just kill every baby boy, and that will take care of it. Jesus’ coming was thus marked not only by Joy to the World, but by Rachel Weeping for her Children and Refusing to be Comforted.
It’s important to note that Jesus did not cause the suffering and pain and loss of those children; a sinful man, in clear rebellion to God and his message, was the culprit. But those baby martyrs unfortunately and needlessly died in the regal rage of a madman who couldn’t face the fact that Emmanuel had come. The coming of Jesus has led to much needless suffering by many innocents through the ages, and this was the first of those. The common denominator to that suffering? To repeat: evil, sinful people in rebellion against God.
The reference to Rachel comes from Jeremiah, looking back at the exile of Judah when the Babylonians marched them to slavery. Heading down the road through Ramah, the weeping was no doubt intense and the physical brutality beyond belief. Ramah—6 miles north of Jerusalem—while Bethlehem, 6 miles south of Jerusalem, are linked on opposite sides of the king’s residence for some kind of geographical window. All of it embeds the fact that Herod took his calculated, dastardly action to wipe out the newborn king and make sure he alone was ruler of the people.
Herod didn’t count on Joseph leading his family out of the impending tragedy by taking up refugee status in Egypt, doing so based on a super-natural dream that was unmistakably clear: “Get away…Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” Despite the horrific infanticide of the region, God ensured that the newborn baby Jesus would be safe.
This sequence of events is the most sobering chapter of the early chapters of the greatest story ever told.
“Father, we don’t understand mad men; how they think, why they do what they do, how they are allowed to keep going down sinful and destructive paths. But we do know that you have a plan that is above the evil of humanity, and we rejoice in your constant and ultimate care and provision—especially today as we meditate on your deliverance of baby Jesus from the grips of Herod’s plot.”
Freddy Boswell 