A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, weeping, and great mourning. Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.
This verse cites the word of the prophet Jeremiah as a prophetic image concerning the slaughter of the infants of Bethlehem. Ramah symbolically presents Israel’s maternal grief, and Rachel is the spiritual mother of the people, who “weeps for her children,” expressing human pain and the sense of irreparable loss. The Evangelist shows that this prophecy is not only a historical lament, but also a profound spiritual image—the sorrow of the world before the light of salvation is revealed. The coming of Christ was to comfort this weeping, transforming sorrow into hope, for through Him death was to be transformed into life.