Thus saith the Lord, a voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation
and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to
be comforted for her children, because they were not.--Jeremiah
xxxi. 15.
It will not be difficult to discover the mourning prophet referred
to the murder of the infants of Bethlehem, when it is remembered
that Rachel the beloved wife of Jacob, was the mother of Benjamin,
which tribe, with that of Judah and the family of Levi, after the
revolt of the ten tribes, formed the kingdom of Judah. We are told
the wise men came to Jerusalem, to inquire from the Jews themselves,
at what place their long promised King should be born; and when told
Bethlehem was the honoured spot, they departed with a charge from
Herod, then king of Judah, to return and bring him tidings, that he
also might go and worship the infant King. But his hypocrisy was
soon discovered. Under pretence, that the wise men had offered him
an insult in not returning to Jerusalem, he issued an order, to
destroy all the children in Bethlehem, from two years old and under.
An order in every point of view, most cruel, unjust, and cowardly,
and which the most hardened wretch must have shuddered to execute.
The mind cannot conceive an act of greater barbarity, than the
murder of so many innocent babes, in order to be sure of one, even
the holy child Jesus. It does not appear that any of their parents
had offended the cowardly tyrant, whose heart was harder than the
nether mill-stone. What wonder if the voice of lamentation and wo
was heard, when the murderer's sword was (to use the prophet's
language) made drunk with blood, with the blood of helpless infants,
who were torn from the arms of those who would gladly have shed
their own blood in the rescue of their babes; but the armed ruffian
band, like their master, were insensible to pity, and deaf to the
cry of mercy. Well might Rachel, a mother in Israel, have wept, had
she witnessed this cruel order executed on the infants of her race!
How enviable the lot of those youthful martyrs for the cause of
Christ, compared to his, who, though seated on a throne, trembled at
the name of Jesus, even when an infant at Bethlehem.