Mt 2:13-18
13When [the magi] had departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.” 14Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt. 15He stayed there until the death of Herod, that what the Lord had said through the prophet might be fulfilled, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”
16When Herod realized that he had been deceived by the magi, he became furious. He ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had ascertained from the magi. 17Then was fulfilled what had been said through Jeremiah the prophet: 18“A voice was heard in Ramah,/ sobbing and loud lamentation;/ Rachel weeping for her children,/ and she would not be consoled,/ since they were no more.”
RACHEL WEEPING: Rachel, the younger daughter of Laban, was Jacob’s beloved wife. She bore him Joseph, and later, Benjamin; she died shortly after, “on the way to Ephrath” where she was buried (Gn 35:39).
The veneration of Rachel’s burial place, probably near Bethel, would have been likely among a tribe associated with her. For Jeremiah (Jer 31:5), Rachel’s weeping is associated with the captivity and deportation of the tribes of the Northern Kingdom by the Assyrians in 722-721 BC, since some of the northern tribes (Manasseh and Ephraim) were reckoned as her descendants. But Jeremiah may as well speak of the Benjaminites in the Southern Kingdom of Judah. After the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC, the captives were first taken to Ramah, near the tomb of Rachel, and then from there to Babylon.
Ramah is associated with Bethlehem probably because some of the clan of Ephrath settled in Bethlehem. Matthew has drawn from this tradition to associate Rachel’s weeping with the massacre of the infants in Bethlehem.
Matthew’s story echoes two great tragedies in Israelite history: the slavery in Egypt, during which Pharaoh slaughtered
the male infants of the Hebrews, and the exile of the tribes in Assyria and Babylon. The massacre of the male children is a clear reminder of the persecution in Egypt, while Rachel’s weeping, that of the exile. At Jesus’ birth, the children of Israel suffer once more. But just as God ultimately broke the power of the tyrant, so here he frustrates the evil design of Herod. Jesus is saved so that eventually he will save God’s people. He, the Savior, relives both great moments of God’s salvation.