Friday 26th December
Read Matthew 2:17-18
“Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
18 ‘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.’” (NIVUK)
The murder of the innocents, as described for many centuries, Matthew argues fills full what Jeremiah said. The simple approach to the fulfilment is to argue that as Ramah is near Bethlehem, and children were killed by Herod in Bethlehem, the distress of the mothers there was foretold.
The reason Matthew draws our attention to Jeremiah though, like all of the OT citations, is deeper and richer than that. Jeremiah is drawing on the OT himself when he speaks of the fate of Israel going into Exile. It is a living death they enter into in Babylon. Yet Jeremiah prophecies hope in that passage – a hope that NT authors regularly draw upon.
When Jeremiah writes of Rachel, he is alluding to Israel herself – for Rachel was the beloved wife and mother of Joseph and Benjamin. Joseph and Benjamin were drawn into Exile to Egypt but ultimately were redeemed triumphantly when one who was saved through the waters (Moses), fled to Midian, then returned with the power and authority of God.
There are many more burrows we can scurry down in understanding the richness of Matthew’s allusion to Jeremiah. He places those texts to encourage us to do just that – and hence understand fully the ways of God. But we can draw comfort from the simple truth that what was hopeless and tragic turned to hope and joy in the end.
