Matthew 2:16 - Meaning and Application

Here we see, first, Herod’s anger over the wise men’s departure. He waited a long time for them to come back, hoping that, though they were slow, they would surely return and he could crush this rival at once. But when he learned they had gone home by another route, his jealousy grew worse. He likely suspected they had sided with this new King, and that made him furious. Sinful desires often grow stronger when they are blocked.

Second, we see Herod’s plan to destroy the one born King of the Jews. If he could not reach Jesus by killing a single child, he thought he could catch him in a wider slaughter, like a sword in war that kills everyone in its path. Those who want to destroy one sin often end up destroying many sins in the process. Herod was an Edomite, and hostility toward Israel was deeply rooted in him. Doeg, another Edomite, had once killed the Lord’s priests for David’s sake. It is terrible, but wicked people rarely lack wicked helpers.

Little children are usually protected by human law and by natural human pity, yet this tyrant sacrificed them. Like Nero, Herod showed that innocence is no sure defense when a ruler is cruel. He had already been a bloodthirsty man for years, having destroyed the whole Sanhedrim, the Jewish council of judges, not long before. But blood to a bloodthirsty man is like drink to someone with dropsy, the more he has, the more he wants.

Herod was about seventy years old, so a child under two would not likely have troubled him in the future. He was also not tender toward his own family. He had already killed two of his sons, Alexander and Aristobulus, and later he killed Antipater, his son, only five days before his own death. So this massacre came from pride and cruelty alone. He wanted to catch every possible child, so he ordered the death of all boys two years old and under. Jesus was likely not yet a year old, but Herod included all boys under two so that none would escape. He did not care how many innocent heads fell, as long as the one he feared did not get away.

He also widened the slaughter by place, killing the male children not only in Bethlehem but in all the surrounding villages. This was extreme wickedness (Ecclesiastes 7:17). Unchecked rage, backed by unlawful power, often drives people to terrible cruelty. Yet it was not unjust for God to allow this. Every human life is already forfeited to God’s justice because of sin. Death entered the world through Adam’s disobedience, and we should not assume these children suffered because they were worse sinners than others in Israel. God’s judgments are too deep for us to measure. Even the sickness and death of little children show that original sin is real.

Still, this murder must also be seen as martyrdom. Persecution against Christ and his kingdom began very early. Jesus had said he did not come to bring peace on earth, but a sword, and even this kind of sword (Matthew 10:34-35). These children gave a silent witness to the Lord Jesus. As he had once been honored in the womb by a child leaping for joy at his coming, so now children of the same age bore witness to him by their deaths. They shed their blood for him, and later he would shed his blood for them. They were the youngest soldiers in the great army of martyrs. If they were baptized with blood into the church triumphant, then what they gained in heaven more than made up for what they lost on earth.

Some traditions say the slain children numbered 14,000, but that is very unlikely. The larger point is how weak tradition can be. It is strange that Josephus, the Jewish historian, does not mention this event, but he wrote long after Matthew and likely would not give support to Christian history. If the story had not been true and well known, he would probably have denied it. A heathen writer, Macrobius, says that when Augustus Caesar heard Herod had ordered the killing of boys under two years old, and that his own son was among them, Augustus joked, “It is better to be Herod’s pig than his son.” The saying fits Herod’s character, since Jewish custom kept him from killing a pig, but nothing stopped him from killing his son. Some think he had a young child nursing in Bethlehem. Others think two different events were mixed together, the slaughter of the infants and the death of Antipater.

It is also striking that the church of Rome includes the Holy Innocents in its calendar and keeps a day in their memory, even though it has often justified itself by violent massacres of its own. That is much like the people who built the tombs of the prophets while filling up the same sins their fathers committed. Even so, there is another purpose of God in this slaughter. The Old Testament had already shown that Bethlehem was to be the Messiah’s place of birth, and this was the right time. When all the boys born there at that time were killed, and Jesus alone escaped, it became clear that only Jesus could claim to be the Messiah. Herod thought he had beaten the prophecies, the star, and the wise men’s worship. He thought that by burning the hive he had killed the bee. But God in heaven laughed at him. No matter what cruel schemes people make, the Lord’s purpose will stand.

Third, in all this the Scripture was fulfilled (Matthew 2:17-18), especially the word from Jeremiah 31:15: “A voice was heard in Ramah.”

See and admire how fully Scripture is fulfilled. This prophecy had already been fulfilled in Jeremiah’s day, when Nebuzaradan, the Babylonian commander, after destroying Jerusalem, gathered the prisoners at Ramah and dealt with them as he chose, either for death or captivity (Jeremiah 40:1). Then the cry in Ramah was heard as far as Bethlehem, since those two towns, one in Judah’s territory and the other in Benjamin’s, were not far apart. Now the prophecy is fulfilled again in the great grief over the death of these infants.

The Scripture was fulfilled, first, in the place of this mourning. The sound of it spread from Bethlehem to Ramah, because Herod’s cruelty reached all around Bethlehem, even into Benjamin’s territory, among the children of Rachel. Some think the area around Bethlehem was called Rachel’s country because she died and was buried there. Rachel’s grave was near Bethlehem (Genesis 35:16, Genesis 35:19). Compare also 1 Samuel 10:2. Rachel had a deep love for children. The son she lost in childbirth she named Benoni, which means “son of my sorrow.” These mothers were like Rachel. They lived near Rachel’s grave, and many of them came from Rachel’s family line. So their cries are beautifully pictured as Rachel’s own weeping.

Second, the Scripture was fulfilled in the degree of this mourning. It was “lamentation, and mourning, and great mourning,” and that was still not enough to describe such a heavy loss. There was a great cry in Egypt when the firstborn were killed, and there was one here when the youngest were killed, the ones we naturally cherish most. This shows us the world we live in. We hear lamenting, weeping, and mourning all around us, and we see tears from people who are oppressed for many reasons. Our path runs through a valley of tears.

This sorrow was so deep that they would not be comforted. They held tightly to their grief and took comfort in sorrow itself. Blessed be God, no loss in this world, not even one caused by sin, gives us a reason to refuse comfort. They would not be comforted because they are not, that is, they are no longer in the land of the living, no longer as they were in their mothers’ arms. If they truly were not, there might be some excuse for grieving as people without hope. But we know they are not destroyed, only gone before us. If we forget that they still are, we lose the best ground for comfort (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

Some take this grief in Bethlehem as a judgment on the people for their rejection of Christ. Those who would not rejoice at the birth of the Son of God were justly made to weep for the death of their own sons. They only wondered at what the shepherds told them, but did not welcome it. Quoting this prophecy may also answer an objection some people would raise against Christ because of this sad event. “Can the Messiah, who is supposed to be the Comforter of Israel, come into the world amid such mourning?” Yes, because it was foretold, and Scripture had to be fulfilled. More than that, if we look further into this prophecy, we see that the bitter weeping in Ramah was only the beginning of greater joy. It goes on to say, “Your work shall be rewarded, and there is hope in your future.” The worse things are, the sooner they will improve. A child was given to them, enough to make up for their loss.