But This Great Joy Will Arise Out Of Sorrow And Out Of What YHWH Has Caused To Happen To His People (Jeremiah 31:15).
In a deliberate contrast to the joy and exultancy of the previous verses, Jeremiah now returns to the anguish of the current situation. In a very short (one verse) passage we are reminded again of the chastisement that must precede the blessing. The future is bright, but the present is not. The present is ‘Rachel' weeping for her children because ‘they are not'.
‘Thus says YHWH,'
Once more what happens is to be seen as resulting from the word of YHWH.
“A voice is heard on a height (or ‘in Ramah'), lamentation, and bitter weeping,
Rachel weeping for her children,
She refuses to be comforted for her children,
Because they are not.”
There would appear here to be a play on ideas. ‘Ramah' (‘height') is here without the article whereas when used of towns it usually has the article, not only in the historical contexts such as Jeremiah 40:1; Joshua 18:25; Judges 4:5, etc., but also in prophetic writings such as Hosea 6:8; Isaiah 10:29. It is thus suggestive of ‘Rachel' standing on ‘a height' (as in 1 Samuel 22:6; Ezekiel 16:24), looking towards the north as her children disappear over the horizon. And just as ‘Jacob' represented the people of Israel/Judah, so we may see ‘Rachel' as doing the same here. The picture is of the remnant of Israel/Judah, and all their buried ancestors in the land, mourning over those who have gone into exile.
But why should Rachel in particular be introduced? It was probably precisely because Jeremiah wanted to see in this a reference to ancient Ramah, a site which was unquestionably near the place where Rachel died in sorrow in child birth. And as she died she called her son ‘Ben-oni', ‘son of my sorrow' (Genesis 35:18). Thus Rachel's sorrow was especially related to Benjamin, and to this area. We could even describe this as ‘the time of Rachel's sorrow' (compare ‘Jacob's trouble' in Jeremiah 30:7). Rachel was Jacob's wife, and she was buried after dying in childbirth ‘on the way to Bethlehem' (coming from Bethel - Genesis 35:16 ff.). 1 Samuel 10:2 puts her tomb as ‘on the border of Benjamin' near Zelzah (site unknown). Her tomb was thus well known in Samuel's day. He himself lived at a different Ramah (which simply means ‘height') and he possibly therefore referred to ‘nearby Zelzah' rather than ‘nearby ancient Ramah' so as to avoid confusion between the two Ramahs.
This ancient Ramah in Benjamin was a stopping place between Bethel and Bethlehem in the area of Gibeon and Beeroth in the tribal area of Benjamin (Joshua 18:25). It was near Jerusalem (which was on the border of Benjamin) and Gibeah (Judges 19:13). This may be seen as supporting the ancient tradition that Rachel was buried near Ramah, (on the basis of which tradition a tomb was in more modern times (15th century AD) built there after the Muslim style, as a memorial of her). This pathetic picture may well therefore be intended to include the idea of Rachel weeping from her resting place, where she had once grieved over Benjamin, as she sees what has now happened to her present seed and to the seed of Jacob. Once again she is in sorrow because of Benjamin. Interestingly her sons can be seen as representing both Ephraim (who was the son of her own son Joseph) and Judah (who were united as one people with Benjamin her son), and it should be noted that in Psalms 80:2 it is the Rachel tribes, Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh (the ‘children' of Rachel) who represent the whole of Israel/Judah. On the other hand she did, of course, also have other sons by her handmaid who would certainly in those days have been seen as genuinely her sons. We cannot therefore see Rachel as just weeping over Ephraim. She is weeping over the whole of Israel/Judah.
Ramah was also the place where the captives were gathered to be taken into exile (Jeremiah 40:1), which may also possibly help to explain why ‘Rachel' was seen as weeping there, but if that was the prime reference we would expect mention of Ramah before this in order to make the reference clear, and we would have expected the article (found in Jeremiah 40:1). On the other hand everyone knew that ancient Ramah was near the place where Rachel had died in sorrow, so that the very hint of ‘ramah' would draw attention to it. What is, however, most important is that her weeping is depicted as unceasing (she refuses to be comforted), because the land is empty and her children are no longer there. She refuses to be comforted because her children ‘are not.' That is the essence of the verse.
As already mentioned, Ramah is in Benjamin (Joshua 18:25), and on the border with Judah, and so she is not to be seen as just weeping for the northern kingdom. Benjamin and Judah too are gone. And Rachel has, as it were, been left alone, bereft of all her children, either by slaughter or by exile. The only thing that can comfort her will be the return of her children. But as yet that has not happened. The days of hope that lie ahead must first be preceded (especially for the few remaining in Judah and Benjamin, if Rachel is seen as representing them), by days of mourning and weeping for a people far away. Matthew later sees the return from exile as not really satisfying her sorrow when he contemplated in his day what Israel had become, and so he saw the sorrow of the bereaved women of Bethlehem as significant when Another Who represented Israel and was one of Rachel's ‘children' would be exiled to Egypt, escaping from the slaughter of other children, only later to return from exile (Matthew 2:17-18). He was thus seen by Matthew as representing exiled Israel (see Matthew 2:15-17) and therefore as fulfilling this prophecy.