A Postscript on Matthew 2:16-18
Rabbinic midrash does not view events primarily in the context of linear history with its past, present, and future. I do not suggest that the rabbis had no sense that certain events took place before they lived and that others (such as the days of Messiah) were yet to occur. However, between the past and the future, the present was in many ways both a reiteration of the past and a foreshadowing of the future. In this post, I want to zero in on the rabbinic understanding of events as reiterations of something past.
Rivka Ulmer describes the mode of historical thinking characteristic of the midrashim (and, in my view, of Matthew 2:16-18, which includes the Slaughter of the Innocents and Rachel weeping over her children). She writes, "That which we view as the 'past,' the utilization of an 'earlier' and available textual medium, forms a constant 'present' in the process of rabbinic interpretation. Historical events and their interpretations have models1 in the past, in the bible" (Ulmer 2006, 72).
Jacob Neusner explains how individual midrash interpretations form a paradigm that becomes the framework for understanding events. For the rabbis who authored midrash, "what had taken place the first time as unique and unprecedented took place the second [and third and fourth . . .] time in precisely the same pattern and therefore formed of an episode a series" (Neusner 1997, 375). If we include Matthew 2:16-18, the series looks like this: Rachel weeps for the first time, unique and unprecedented, in Jeremiah 31:15-17. Matthew's is the second episode and the midrashim follow.
Joel Kennedy's view of the concept of "fulfillment" in Matthew closely parallels Neusner's description of the rabbinic paradigm. From the perspective of New Testament studies, Kennedy writes that the concept of "fulfillment" in Matthew means "correspondence, repetition, and recapitulation" of an earlier scripture (Kennedy 2008, 145). In some cases, this reiteration is final and definitive; in others it is not, leaving room for others. This understanding of "fulfillment" supports the inclusion of Matthew 2:16-18 as the second episode in the series that begins with Jeremiah 31:15-17.
Those who relate to an event as one in a series that flows from a biblical source do not view those events solely as the outcome of recent causes. Nor do they rely solely on an eschatological future to imbue the present with meaning. For them, the joys and sorrows of life gain a measure of meaning from their relationship to the biblically-rooted series of events.
So Matthew 2:16-18 is a reiteration of Rachel weeping in Jeremiah 31. In this paradigm, Rachel (who died over a millennium before Jeremiah's time) weeps in Ramah over the innocent children who are no more. Rachel has become the mother of all Jewish children, even those who are not descended from her. The utter anguish of her cries reaches the ears of God, who speaks words of hope. Fast forward another five or six centuries and Rachel's cries are reiterated in Matthew 2 where, once again, her children are no more.
In Jeremiah 31, the context is the Babylonian exile and the promised return. Although the paradigm of exile and return is prominent in Matthew 2, the Slaughter of the Innocents and Rachel weeping is embedded in two other paradigms: Rachel weeping over her lost children and the Messianic paradigm. The children in the Bethlehem region are slaughtered in Herod's futile attempt to slay the Messiah, who has been removed to Egypt. In the both cases, a brutal adversary slays the children, who have become collateral damage. The full weight of these tragedies overwhelms Rachel, the mother of Israel, who weeps inconsolably.
Later, the rabbis who authored the midrashim would cite Rachel weeping again and again. For them, the Rachel who weeps in Jeremiah 31 is also Israel weeping, is the Holy Spirit weeping, is all heaven and earth weeping over the lost children.
The texts concerning Rachel weeping do not depict the death of the children as the mere result of local historical circumstances, but as part of an overarching paradigm of loss and lamentation, to which God responds with a promise of return. The pain of the children’s death is no less severe, but this way of looking at personal and communal bereavement gives a unique dimension of meaning to these events: they arise from a biblical past that is also, and always, present, a past that is reiterated until God's promise to Rachel is kept and Rachel's children return home.
We do not know whether the Jewish community in the region of Bethlehem understood their personal and communal tragedy in the context of the unfolding Messianic drama. We do not know whether they heard their own weeping as the voice of Rachel. Hopefully, they made these connections in the process of grieving over their children. If not, they became clear over time. One way or another, the text of Matthew bears witness to the view of history that characterizes the midrashim.
Footnotes
1 I prefer "sources" to Ulmer's "models," since the biblical events are not only templates used to understand and explain the historical present but are understood as ongoing sources of the present. The Rachel weeping texts are prime examples of this: each event in the series derives energy and significance from the source event described in Jeremiah 31.
Bibliography
Kennedy, Joel. The Recapitulation of Israel: Use of Israel's History in Matthew 1:1-4:11. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008. Neusner, Jacob. "Paradigmatic versus Historical Thinking: The Case of Rabbinic Judaism" in History and Theory,Vol. 36, No.3 (Oct.,1997), 353-377. Ulmer, Rivka. "The Boundaries of the Rabbinic Midrash Genre." Colloquium 38/1 2006. 59-73.
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