Rachael

There are verses that look like they have double or multiple applications, but more careful exegesis shows a Christological (fulfilment in Christ and the gospel) intention. For example, Matthew quoted Jer 31:15 in regard to the massacre of children by Herod, “The voice was heard in Ramah, Rachel weeping for her children.” (Matt 2:17-18).

Ramah was close to Bethlehem. Some have said this text was about the captivity to Babylon, for Ramah was the depot from which the exiles of Judah were taken away to Babylon (Jer 40:1). This application would mean that those children would be returned from exile and so Rachel should not weep, so applying it also to Jesus’ time would be a double application. It could also be applied to our day in another return of the Jews, if we liked.

Viewing texts this way allows multiple applications, or Post Modern interpretations, the blain of Dispensational hermeneutics. That is, the text is said to be fulfilled in our own last-days generation. While the principles of scripture relate to every generation, the intended historical fulfilment of them does not.

While Jeremiah is speaking at length about the return of Israel from Babylon, he shows that the purpose of the return is their real deliverance from sin, through the New Covenant. It is this New Covenant return to God that Jeremiah is addressing in Jer 31:15-19, not from the Babylonian captivity. Matthew rightly therefore applies this passage to the birth of Jesus Christ and redemption from their enemy (and our enemy), sin. The passage further states:

Turn me and I shall be turned; for You are the Lord my God. Surely after that I was turned, I repented…(Jer 31:18-19).

This word translated turn refers to changing of the heart (Ps 80:19, Lam 5:21). Israel did not repent after their return from Babylon, but soon went back into sin. This was a prayer that was answered in the New Covenant. It also shows that it is God who must turn our heart and that repentance and faith follow this regeneration or new birth.

We also know that Jeremiah was not referring to the children taken in captivity for they were not killed, as those under Herod in Jesus’ time were. Jeremiah said they were not, which Matthew said meant they were killed. In that Jeremiah said they would be returned, he meant deliverance would come to the seed of Rachel (the children of faith) through Jesus Christ. This is Jeremiah’s intended Messianic meaning.