Jeremiah, watching the exiles of Judah herded north past Ramah toward Babylon, wrote: 'A voice was heard on high of lamentation, of mourning, and weeping, of RACHEL WEEPING for her children, and refusing to be comforted for them, because they are not' (Jeremiah 31:15). Rachel, mother of Israel, buried by tradition on the road to Bethlehem, weeps from her grave as her children are taken.
When Herod, deceived by the Magi, killed 'all the men children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the borders thereof, from two years old and under' (Matthew 2:16), Matthew heard Jeremiah's verse fulfilled: 'Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremias the prophet' (Matthew 2:17–18). The Church venerates these children as the Holy Innocents, the first martyrs, keeping their feast on December 28 since the fifth century.
The context Matthew invokes is larger than the grief: Jeremiah 31 continues, 'Let thy voice cease from weeping... and there is hope for thy last end' — it is the chapter of the New Covenant (31:31). The evangelist plants the slaughter inside the very oracle that promises the covenant the Child would one day seal.