Jeremiah 31:15 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

A voice was heard in Ramah. — The sharp contrast between this and the exulting joy of the previous verse shows that we are entering on a new section which repeats in altered form the substance of the foregoing, presenting in succession the same pictures of present woe and future gladness. The prophet sees first the desolation of the captivity. Rachel, as the mother of Joseph, and therefore of Ephraim, becomes the ideal representative of the northern kingdom. Her voice is heard in Ramah (possibly, as in 1 Samuel 22:6; Ezekiel 16:24, and in the Vulgate here, not as the name of a locality, but in its general meaning, from a mountain height) weeping for the children who have been slain or carried into exile. When used elsewhere as a proper name, the noun always has the article. Here it stands without it. If Ramah be definitely one of the places of that name, known fully as Ramathaim-zophim (1 Samuel 1:1; 1 Samuel 1:19), it is probably that within the borders of Benjamin (Joshua 18:25), not far from Rachel’s sepulchre (1 Samuel 10:2). She, even in her grave, weeps for her children. The mention of Ramah in Isaiah 10:29 seems to indicate that it was the scene of some special massacre in the progress of the Assyrian invader, in the reign of Hezekiah; and Jeremiah may possibly refer to it, as well as to some later atrocity, in connection with that of the Chaldæans (comp. Jeremiah 40:1), over which Rachel, in her sepulchre near Bethlehem, is supposed to weep. Possibly also the meaning of the name Rachel (= ewe) may have added something to the force of the prophet’s description. He hears the cry of the ewe on the hill-top bleating for her lambs. The passage has gained a special significance as being cited by St. Matthew (Matthew 2:18), as fulfilled in Herod’s massacre of the infants of Bethlehem. On the nature of this fulfilment see Note on Matthew 2:18.