Bible Strands
Jeremiah 31:15
This is what the LORD says: “A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — God delivers this oracle through Jeremiah to the exiled nation of Israel, positioned directly between a promise of spiritual abundance in verse 14 and a command to cease mourning in verse 16.
The words — The text emphasizes נְהִי (nehi), a formal mourning song, and בְּכִי (bekhi), the act of weeping, to describe the audible grief echoing in Ramah.
The thread — This scene of unconsolable grief resurfaces in Matthew 2:16 during Herod’s massacre, appears in Psalms 77:2 as a metaphor for a soul that refuses comfort, and reappears in Jeremiah 40:1 as the location where Nebuzaradan releases Jeremiah.
Why it lands — The passage records Rachel’s audible mourning for children who are no more before the surrounding context promises their return. It requires a reader to acknowledge the reality of irreversible loss without rushing past the text to the subsequent promise of restoration.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Thus saith the Lord; A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not.
Cross-references
- Matthew 2:16 When Herod saw that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was filled with rage. Sending orders, he put to death all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, according to the time he had learned from the Magi.
- Psalms 77:2 In the day of trouble I sought the Lord; through the night my outstretched hands did not grow weary; my soul refused to be comforted.
- Jeremiah 40:1 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD after Nebuzaradan captain of the guard had released him at Ramah, having found him bound in chains among all the captives of Jerusalem and Judah who were being exiled to Babylon.
- Genesis 35:19 So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem).
- Genesis 37:35 All his sons and daughters tried to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. “No,” he said. “I will go down to Sheol mourning for my son.” So his father wept for him.
- Isaiah 22:4 Therefore I said, “Turn away from me, let me weep bitterly! Do not try to console me over the destruction of the daughter of my people.”
- Jeremiah 10:20 My tent is destroyed, and all its ropes are snapped. My sons have departed from me and are no more. I have no one left to pitch my tent or set up my curtains.
- Genesis 42:13 But they answered, “Your servants are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan. The youngest is now with our father, and one is no more.”
- Genesis 42:36 Their father Jacob said to them, “You have deprived me of my sons. Joseph is gone and Simeon is no more. Now you want to take Benjamin. Everything is going against me!”
- Lamentations 5:7 Our fathers sinned and are no more, but we bear their punishment.