Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 31:15

"Thus saith Jehovah: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children; she refuseth to be comforted for her children, because they are not." — Jeremiah 31:15 (ASV)

A voice was heard in Ramah. — The sharp contrast between this and the exulting joy of the previous verse shows that we are entering a new section that repeats, in an altered form, the substance of the preceding section, presenting in succession the same pictures of present woe and future gladness. The prophet first sees the desolation of the captivity. Rachel, as the mother of Joseph, and therefore of Ephraim, becomes the ideal representative of the northern kingdom.

Her voice is heard in Ramah (possibly, as in 1 Samuel 22:6, Ezekiel 16:24, and in the Vulgate here, not as the name of a locality, but in its general meaning, from a mountain height) weeping for the children who have been slain or carried into exile.

Elsewhere, when used as a proper name, the noun always has the article; here, however, it stands without it. If Ramah is definitely one of the places of that name, known fully as Ramathaim-zophim (1 Samuel 1:1; 1 Samuel 1:19), it is probably the one within the borders of Benjamin (Joshua 18:25), not far from Rachel’s sepulcher (1 Samuel 10:2).

She, even in her grave, weeps for her children. The mention of Ramah in Isaiah 10:29 seems to indicate that it was the scene of some special massacre during the advance of the Assyrian invader in the reign of Hezekiah. Jeremiah may possibly refer to it, as well as to some later atrocity connected with that of the Chaldeans , over which Rachel, in her sepulcher near Bethlehem, is supposed to weep.

Possibly, the meaning of the name Rachel (= ewe) may also have added something to the force of the prophet’s description. He hears the cry of the ewe on the hilltop, bleating for her lambs. The passage has gained special significance from being cited by St. Matthew (Matthew 2:18) as fulfilled in Herod’s massacre of the infants of Bethlehem. On the nature of this fulfillment, see the note on Matthew 2:18.