Genesis 37:30

37:30 returned to his brothers, and said, “The boy isn’t there! And I, where can I go?”

Genesis 42:36

42:36 Their father Jacob said to them, “You are making me childless! Joseph is gone. 1  Simeon is gone. 2  And now you want to take 3  Benjamin! Everything is against me.”

Jeremiah 31:15

31:15 The Lord says,

“A sound is heard in Ramah, 4 

a sound of crying in bitter grief.

It is the sound of Rachel weeping for her children

and refusing to be comforted, because her children are gone.” 5 

Matthew 2:18

2:18 “A voice was heard in Ramah,

weeping and loud wailing, 6 

Rachel weeping for her children,

and she did not want to be comforted, because they were 7  gone.” 8 

1 tn Heb “is not.”

2 tn Heb “is not.”

3 tn The nuance of the imperfect verbal form is desiderative here.

4 sn Ramah is a town in Benjamin approximately five miles (8 km) north of Jerusalem. It was on the road between Bethel and Bethlehem. Traditionally, Rachel’s tomb was located near there at a place called Zelzah (1 Sam 10:2). Rachel was the mother of Joseph and Benjamin and was very concerned about having children because she was barren (Gen 30:1-2) and went to great lengths to have them (Gen 30:3, 14-15, 22-24). She was the grandmother of Ephraim and Manasseh which were two of the major tribes in northern Israel. Here Rachel is viewed metaphorically as weeping for her “children,” the descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh, who had been carried away into captivity in 722 b.c.

5 tn Or “gone into exile” (cf. v. 16), though some English versions take this as meaning “dead” (e.g., NCV, CEV, NLT), presumably in light of Matt 2:18.

6 tc The LXX of Jer 38:15 (31:15 ET) has “lamentation, weeping, and loud wailing”; most later mss (C D L W 0233 Ë13 33 Ï) have a quotation in Matthew which conforms to that of the LXX (θρῆνος καὶ κλαυθμός καὶ ὀδυρμός; qrhno" kai klauqmo" kai odurmo"). But such assimilations were routine among the scribes; as such, they typically should be discounted because they are both predictable and motivated. The shorter reading, without “lamentation and,” is thus to be preferred, especially since it cannot easily be accounted for unless it is the original wording here. Further, it is found in the better mss along with a good cross-section of other witnesses (א B Z 0250 Ë1 pc lat co).

7 tn Grk “are”; the Greek text uses a present tense verb.

8 sn A quotation from Jer 31:15.