I have to admit that today's Gospel Reading has always bothered me because it is the slaughter of toddlers (two years old and under) who could not possibly have some idea of why they would be killed.
Some claim that the massacre of the innocents never happened, pointing out that a Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, has no record of the slaughter. The counterargument is that the same historian wrote about the ruthless murders committed by Herod the Great to secure himself in power. (Lanser MDiv, 2008)
The Roman Senate crowned Herod "King of the Jews" in 40 BC in Rome. He had no territory to speak of. He was given a Roman army; he eventually captured Jerusalem. His first action consisted in dismantling the Hasmonean dynasty that had been in power for at least a hundred years, led by the descendants of the Maccabees brothers.
Josephus, the historian, recorded that Herod conspired with Mark Anthony to execute Mattathias Antigonus, then the king of the semi-autonomous kingdom under the Seleucid Empire. Not content with this, he killed 45 leaders of Antoginus' followers within three years after being made King of the Jews. In 30 BC, seven years after the massacre, he had another Hasmonean, the elderly John Hyrcanus II, strangled because the latter was allegedly plotting to overthrow Herod. (Lanser MDiv, 2008)
It was not only by killing that he sought to consolidate power; he had married Miriamme, a Hasmonean princess, before killing John Hyrcanus II. The marriage did not stop Herod's murderous rampage. He had the High Priest Aristobulus, his brother-in-law, killed by drowning because Herod suspected that the Romans preferred the latter to be king of Judea. He also ordered the execution of Alexandra, his mother-in-law, in 28 BC, a year after killing his wife Miramme in 29 BC. Twelve years later, in 7 BC, he ordered the murder of Alexander and Aristobulus, two of his sons by Miriamme. Five days before his own death, he ordered the execution of a third son Antipater. (Lanser MDiv, 2008)
Herod the Great became supremely paranoid during the last four years of his life that overlapped with the year Our Lord was born. He had 300 military leaders executed. In another occasion within that same year, he had several Pharisees executed. The latter had predicted and told Pheroras, his youngest brother's wife that
"that by God's decree Herod's throne would be taken from him, both from himself and his descendents, and the royal power would fall to her and Pheroras and to any children they might have".
(Lanser MDiv, 2008)
To keep track of all the possible rumors of revolts and conspiracies, real or imagined, he maintained a spy network and killed any threat. (Lanser MDiv, 2008)
Given Herod the Great's propensity to kill anybody who seemed to pose any threat to his grip on the throne, the story cannot be dismissed as a fabrication.
To those who wonder why Flavius Josephus did not mention the massacre of the Innocents at all, the proffered explanation is he may not have known about it because he was writing a hundred years or so after the birth of Christ. Furthermore, Josephus would not have considered it worthwhile to write about the horrific event even if he did. He was writing for a Greco-Roman audience that did not care about infant deaths. The Greeks practiced infanticide for birth control; a Roman father had the right not to lift his baby off the floor after its birth, thus leaving it to die. (Lanser MDiv, 2008)
I hope you haven't lost your desire to eat.
It seems to me then that this text shows the extent to which Our Lord entered our world. An overview presented by the Gospel of Matthew is that the coming of Our Lord was the fulfillment of God's covenant promise to the Jews. This is highlighted by the genealogy where Jesus's ancestry shows him belonging to the line of David and Abraham. The unusualness of the circumstances of his birth causes distress to the Jews.
We note that in Matthew's Gospel, the Annunciation and Mary's perplexity are somewhat glossed over.
Now this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found with child through the holy Spirit.
Matthew 1, 18
The focus is on Joseph's unease and later acceptance of God's word spoken through a dream.
But Joseph's unease overflows into the next chapter.
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of King Herod, behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, "Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage." When King Herod heard this, he was greatly troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.
Matthew 2, 1-3
There is a foreboding that Our Lord would be rejected by His own people, but accepted by the Gentiles.
The Holy Family flees from the region of Judea, by then an area controlled by Herod the Great after he had killed his perceived rival, Aristobulus, his brother-in-law. They fly to Egypt, a pagan territory, recalling Jacob's descendants' sojourn in Egypt to be spared from famine.
We don't know if the Jewish Christians then were already being accused of 'not being Jewish enough' when the Jews as a people were being pressed by the Romans. Were they being accused of what Jeremiah had said to the Jews of an earlier time, the Jewish leaders who wanted to align themselves with Gentiles? Jeremiah had said
And now, why go to Egypt, to drink the waters of the Nile? Why go to Assyria, to drink the waters of the River?
Jeremiah 2, 18
Perhaps the Christians themselves were asking if God had abandoned them.
But then Matthew's answer comes from the next section when John the Baptist is described
It was of him that the prophet Isaiah had spoken when he said:
"A voice of one crying out in the desert, 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.'"
Matthew 3, 3
And where God answers if God had abandoned his people.
And a voice came from the heavens, saying, "This is my beloved Son,[m] with whom I am well pleased."
Matthew 3, 17
And so now I am left with a new puzzle why Matthew left out the rest of the passage that he quotes.
In Ramah is heard the sound of sobbing, bitter weeping!
Rachel mourns for her children, she refuses to be consoled for her children—they are no more!
Matthew 2, 18, Jeremiah 31, 15
Rachel was the wife of Jacob and believed to have been buried in Ramah. She died in childbirth. She was portrayed weeping for all the Jews who had been taken captive; they would die in a foreign land.
The prophecy is fulfilled because those who had been massacred were killed by a foreigner; Herod the Great was an Edomite; he was not an Israelite, he was not a Jew.
The Jewish Christians would have received solace from the rest of the text, the same way we can at this time of great trials in the world. The rest of the text from Jeremiah goes.
Thus says the Lord: Cease your cries of weeping, hold back your tears!
There is compensation for your labor — oracle of the Lord — they shall return from the enemy's land.
There is hope for your future — oracle of the Lord — your children shall return to their own territory.
Jeremiah 13, 16 - 17
Lanser MDiv, R. (2008). Pinpointing the Date of Christ's Birth: The Historical Plausibility of the Slaughter of the Innocents. The Daniel 9: 24-27 Project. Retrieved from https://biblearchaeology.org/research/new-testament-era/2411-the-slaughter-of-the-innocents-historical-fact-or-legendary-fiction
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