Herod Slaughters Babies

Herod Slaughters Babies, Matthew 2:16-18

Matthew 2:16 Then when Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi¹, he became very enraged, and sent and slew² all the male children who were in Bethlehem and all its vicinity, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the magi. 17 Then what had been spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled:

18 “A voice was heard in Ramah,

Weeping and great mourning,

Rachel weeping for her children;

And she refused to be comforted,

Because they were no more³.”

Commentary

Imagine living in a place where the king can decree that children be slaughtered, and his soldiers actually go and carry it out. You’re a mother, nursing your child or putting him down for a nap, and someone bursts into your home, rips the child from your arms, and kills him in front of you. There have been many such atrocities in the history of humankind, and it’s always so shocking and appalling to consider the depths of depravity into which humans are capable of sinking. For instance, I remember the first time I read the story of another Bethlehemite, the Levite’s concubine, in Judges 19. The free will we enjoy on the earth has been the demise of many innocents at the hands of the sinful.

Rachel, who is cited in the text from Matthew, also has an association with Bethlehem. She died and was buried just outside the city (Genesis 35:19). In the passage from Jeremiah, she, as the mother of Benjamin, metaphorically represents the entire tribe of Benjamin, and “the calamity of Israel’s mourning at the time of the exile is correlated here to this renewed calamity brought on by Herod, whose very act of ruling is a direct result of that captivity which had been caused by Israel’s sin” (Nelson KJV Bible Commentary pg. 1166).

The actual event recorded here in the Bible is not recorded in any other historical records, but this is unsurprising, given that Herod committed so many atrocities during the course of his reign that this event could easily have slipped through the cracks of other records. We do know, as referenced in a previous post, that Herod executed his wife and three sons, and the historian Josephus calls him “a man of great barbarity towards (sic) all men” (Nelson KJV Bible Commentary pg. 1166). The fact that Matthew records this event, as well as Jesus’ special attention toward children in Matthew 18:6-7, demonstrates a theme in Matthew’s record, of Jesus’ recognition and elevation of children in a culture where they had little importance. However, Jesus recognized the pain of Rachel and of other mothers who lose their children still today and surely felt the weight of the children whose lives were lost on His behalf (The Word in Life Study Bible pg. 1621).

In this passage, we also get a clue as to how old Jesus would have been at the time of the visit from the magi. Herod slaughtered all boys 2 years old and under, based on the time frame given to him by the magi. Scholars estimate that, by the time of the wise men’s visit, Jesus could have been anywhere between 5 months and 2 years old. This is just my personal speculation, but I’m guessing He wasn’t quite 2 years old, yet. Herod, being the wicked man he was, would surely have ‘rounded up’ from the timeline the wise men cited and would thus have given himself a comfortable buffer, to be quite sure he eliminated the threat to his throne.

As to how many children were affected by his decree, I read numerous articles, looking for a clue to the population of Bethlehem at the time, and most authors simply say it was “small”. The only numerical estimate I found is from someone citing archeologist W.F. Albright, with whose work I am not familiar enough to give credence, but I will use it for argument’s sake. He states the population would have been around 300, with approximately 6-7 children under 1 year old (https://www.quora.com/What-was-the-population-of-Bethlehem-at-the-time-of-Jesus). Assuming there were another 5 children between 1 and 2, and that half of all children were boys, that would mean the total number of children murdered was around 6. If this is true, it also supports the theory that this event might have fallen through the cracks of secular history, being carried out in a small town and affecting a relatively small group of people, though their devastation was great.

See the next post here https://onthepath.online/2019/02/21/the-family-returns-to-nazareth/

Scripture References

¹Mt 2:1 Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, [a]magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying,

²Is 59:7 Their feet run to evil, And they hasten to shed innocent blood; Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity, Devastation and destruction are in their highways.

³Jer 31:15 Thus says the Lord, “A voice is heard in Ramah, Lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; She refuses to be comforted for her children, Because they are no more.”

Gen 35:19 So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem).

Matt 18:6 but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. 7 Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks! For it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes!