John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 31:15-16

"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. Thus saith Jehovah: Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears; for thy work shall be rewarded, saith Jehovah; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy." — Jeremiah 31:15-16 (ASV)

Here, in the first place, the Prophet describes the desolation of the land when deprived of all its inhabitants. In the second place, he adds a comfort: that God would restore the captives from exile, so that the land might again be inhabited. But there is here what they call a personification, that is, an imaginary person introduced, for the Prophet raises up Rachel from the grave and represents her as lamenting. She had been long dead, and her body had been reduced to ashes.

But the discourse has more force when lamentation is ascribed to a dead woman than if the Prophet had said that the land would present a sad and mournful appearance because it would be waste and desolate. For rhetoricians mention personification among the highest excellencies, and Cicero, when treating of the highest ornament of an oration, says that nothing touches an audience so much as when the dead are raised up from below. The Prophet, then, though not taught in the school of rhetoricians, thus adorned his discourse through the impulse of God’s Spirit, so that he might more effectually penetrate into the hearts of the people.

And this personification introduces a scene, for it brings before us the Jews and the other Israelites. It not only represents to them the calamity that was at hand, and what had already partly happened, but it also sets before their eyes the vengeance of God that had taken place in the destruction of the kingdom of Israel, when first four tribes were driven into exile, and afterwards the whole kingdom was destroyed. It also sets forth what the Jews little thought of and did not fear: even the extreme calamity and ruin of the kingdom of Judah and of the holy city.

Hence he says, Thus says Jehovah, A voice on the height is heard, even lamentation, the weeping of bitterness. He introduces God as the speaker because the Jews, though they had seen the dreadful scattering of their brethren, still remained secure. For this reason, another Prophet complains that no one took to heart the calamity of Joseph (Amos 6:6).

They saw that the whole land was almost consumed by God’s vengeance, as though a fire had raged everywhere; and yet they followed their own gratifications, as Isaiah also accuses them (Isaiah 22). This is the reason why God is made to speak here: He had to deal with men who were altogether torpid and heedless. So that the Prophet might then awaken them from their torpor, he introduces God as making the announcement: A voice then is heard—whose voice? The voice of Rachel.

Interpreters think that Rachel is mentioned because she was buried in Bethlehem. But regarding Joseph (that is, his posterity), since this region had come to them by lot, it seems probable to me that the Prophet here refers not to Rachel’s grave, but to her offspring. For that part which those who descended from her son Benjamin had obtained was laid waste; hence, he introduces Rachel as the mother of that part of the country.

And it is well known that the other ten tribes are included under the tribe of Ephraim. But the reference to her burial is without meaning. Rachel, then, weeping for her children, refused consolation, because they were not. That is, she could not receive consolation because a reason was lacking, as her posterity were destroyed and had become extinct in the land.

This passage is quoted by Matthew (Matthew 2:18), where he gives an account of the infants under two years old who had been killed by Herod’s command. Then he says that this prophecy was fulfilled: that Rachel again wept for her children. But the explanation of this is attended with no difficulty, for Matthew meant nothing other than that the same thing happened at the coming of Christ as had taken place before, when the whole country was reduced to desolation. It was the Evangelist’s object to remove an offense arising from novelty, as we know that people’s minds feel dread when anything new, unexpected, and never heard of before happens. Hence, the Evangelists often direct their attention to this point, so that what happened in the time of Christ might not terrify or disturb people’s minds as something new and unexpected, since the fathers had formerly experienced the same.

Therefore, interpreters torture themselves to no purpose by explaining this passage allegorically. For Matthew did not intend to lessen the authority of ancient history, as he knew in what sense this had been formerly said. His only object was to remind the Jews that there was no reason for them to be greatly astonished at that slaughter, for that region had formerly been laid waste and bereaved of all its inhabitants, as though a mother, having had a large family, were to lose all her children.

So now we see how Matthew accommodated this passage for his own purpose. He retains the proper name “Ramah”—and there was a place so called—but the common noun (appellative) is preferable here: A voice is heard on the height, as we had yesterday, “on the height of Zion.” Therefore, a high place is what Jeremiah has mentioned here, because lamentation was to be heard through all parts of the country, as a voice sent forth from a high place sounds far off.

Now we also perceive the meaning of this sentence: that the country possessed by the sons of Benjamin had been reduced to desolation, so that the mother, as one bereaved of her children, pined away in her lamentation, since nothing could afford her comfort because her whole offspring had been cut off.

Now follows a promise that moderates the severity of the calamity. And the two verses ought to be read as set against each other: “Though Rachel, weeping for her children, has no ground for consolation for a time, yet God will console her.” Thus the Prophet, in the former verse, exhorts the Jews to repentance, but in the latter to hope. For it was necessary that the Jews should be forewarned of their dreadful calamity, so that they might acknowledge God’s judgment; and it was also necessary for their minds to be inspired with hope.

Now, then, the Prophet bids them to be comforted, for Rachel, having long lamented her children without any consolation, would at length obtain God’s mercy. God then would console Rachel after her long lamentation.

Refrain, he says, your voice from weeping. The word is בכה (beke): as he had mentioned this word before in the second place, “lamentation, the weeping of bitterness,” so he now repeats the same here, “Refrain your voice from weeping”; that is, cease to complain and to lament the death of your children, and your eyes from tears.

The meaning is that Rachel’s lamentation would not be perpetual. We have said that a dead woman is introduced, but this is done for the sake of solemnity and effect, so that the Jews, having the matter set as it were before their eyes, might be more touched and moved. But if we wish to understand the Prophet’s meaning without a figure, it is this: that the lamentation would not be perpetual, because the exiles would return, and the land that had fallen to the lot of the children of Benjamin and Joseph would again be inhabited.

And he says, For reward shall be to your work. He means that Rachel’s sorrow would at length happily come to an end, so as to produce some benefit. While the faithful, according to Isaiah, were complaining that they were oppressed with grief without hope, they said, We have been in travail, and brought forth wind. By these words they meant that they had experienced the heaviest troubles; and then they added, “without fruit,” as though a woman were in travail and suffered the greatest pain and anguish, and brought forth no living child, but a dead one, which is sometimes the case.

Now a woman who gives birth to a living child rejoices, as Christ says, because a man is born (John 16:21), but when a woman after long pains brings forth a dead lump or something monstrous, it is an increase of sorrow. So the Prophet says that Rachel’s labor (that is, her country’s) would not be without fruit: There shall then be a reward to your work. The Scripture speaks in the same way in 2 Chronicles 15:7, where the Prophet Azariah speaks to King Asa: Act manfully, and let not your hands be weakened, for there shall be a reward to your work.

Then by “work” is to be understood trouble or sorrow, and by “reward” a joyful and prosperous outcome. The meaning is that though the whole country mourned miserably for a time, being deserted and bereaved of its inhabitants, yet the outcome would be joyful, for the Lord would restore the exiles, so that the land would be like a mother having a numerous family and delighting in her children, or in her offspring.

Now, if anyone were to apply this to satisfactions, he would be doing something very absurd, as the Papists do, who say that by the punishment we suffer we are redeemed from eternal death, and that then God’s vengeance is pacified, and satisfaction is made to His justice.

But when the Prophet declares that there would be reward for the work, he does not commend the fruits of the punishment by which God chastised His people, as though they were, as they say, satisfactions. Instead, he simply reminds them that their troubles and sorrows would not be useless, for a happier outcome than the Jews hoped for would take place.

But it is God’s gratuitous gift that there is a reward for our work; that is, when the miseries and calamities He inflicts on us are made aids to our salvation. For doubtless, whatever evils we suffer are tokens of God’s wrath. Poverty, cold, famine, sterility, disease, and all other evils are so many curses inflicted by God.

When, therefore, there is a reward for our troubles and sorrows—that is, when they produce some benefit or fruit—it is as though God turned darkness into light. For naturally, as I have said, all these punishments are curses. But God promises that He will bless us, so that all these punishments shall turn out for our good and salvation, as Paul tells us in Romans 8:28.

Then he adds, They shall return from the land of the enemy. By these words he refers to the restoration of the people, so that Rachel would again see her posterity inheriting the promised land. But there is no reason to dispute here with excessive refinement whether Rachel rejoiced at the return of her offspring, or whether she lamented that calamity. For the Prophet’s object was not to show whether or not the dead are conscious of our affairs; rather, he speaks figuratively to make what he said more striking and forcible.