The King Who Slays and the King Who Saves Text: Matthew 2:16-18
Introduction: Two Kinds of Government
The Christmas story, as we have received it in our sentimental age, is often wrapped in flannelgraph and glitter. We picture peaceful shepherds, serene wise men, and a silent night where all is calm, all is bright. But the biblical account of the nativity is shot through with blood and iron. It is a story of political intrigue, espionage, refugees, and state-sponsored murder. It is not a story that allows for a neat separation of religion and politics. From the very beginning, the birth of Jesus Christ the King was a profound political threat to all other claimants to the throne.
In our text today, we see the collision of two kingdoms, two governments, two kings. On the one hand, we have the kingdom of Herod. This is the kingdom of man in his rebellion, the kingdom of this world. Its methods are rage, paranoia, deceit, and brute force. Its currency is the blood of others. It seeks to establish its authority by bloodletting. On the other hand, we have the kingdom of God, embodied in a helpless infant. This kingdom's authority will be established not by taking life, but by giving it. Its king establishes His authority by bleeding.
This is the fundamental antithesis that runs through all of human history. You have the government of Herod and the government of Christ. One devours, the other feeds. One terrifies, the other comforts. One slaughters, the other saves. And we must understand that this is not simply ancient history. The spirit of Herod is very much alive and well. It is the spirit that animates every godless tyranny, every bureaucratic state that claims ultimate authority, every ideology that demands the sacrifice of children on the altar of its ambition. When we see the abortion industry, we are seeing the spirit of Herod. When we see the state overstep its God-given bounds to redefine marriage or the family, we are seeing the spirit of Herod. The rage of Herod is the rage of every man who will not have this child rule over him.
Matthew includes this horrific event for a crucial theological reason. He wants to show us the cost of sin, the nature of the world our Savior entered, and the sovereign hand of God that works His purposes out even through the most wicked acts of men. This is a hard passage, but it is a necessary one. It strips the sentimentality from Christmas and forces us to confront the reality of the war that Christ was born to win.
The Text
Then when Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he became very enraged, and sent and slew 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 carefully determined from the magi. Then what had been spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled, saying, "A VOICE WAS HEARD IN RAMAH, WEEPING AND GREAT MOURNING, RACHEL WEEPING FOR HER CHILDREN; AND SHE WAS REFUSING TO BE COMFORTED, BECAUSE THEY WERE NO MORE."
(Matthew 2:16-18 LSB)
The Rage of a Thwarted Tyrant (v. 16)
We begin with the impotent fury of a king who discovers he is not God.
"Then when Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he became very enraged, and sent and slew 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 carefully determined from the magi." (Matthew 2:16)
Herod's reaction is instructive. He saw that he had been "tricked," or mocked. The magi, warned by God in a dream, had disobeyed the king in order to obey God. This is the duty of all lesser magistrates, and indeed all believers, when the state commands what God forbids or forbids what God commands. Herod's response is not calculated political maneuvering; it is raw, demonic rage. Tyranny is always personal. It is rooted in the pride of a man who believes his will is ultimate. When that will is crossed, when his sovereignty is challenged, the result is fury.
This is the outworking of a seared conscience. Herod was a man steeped in blood. He had murdered family members, rivals, anyone he perceived as a threat. His paranoia was the rotten fruit of his own wickedness. And so, when he hears of a rival "king of the Jews," his only thought is to eliminate the threat. He cannot imagine a kingdom that is not like his own. He thinks in terms of power, coercion, and violence. The idea of a king who rules by love and truth is utterly alien to him.
Notice the nature of his attack. It is indiscriminate. He slays "all the male children." This is the logic of collectivism, the logic of every murderous regime in history. To get the one he fears, he is willing to murder the many he does not. He defines a class of people, in this case, male children in a certain location and of a certain age, and condemns them all to death. This is the same spirit that drove Pharaoh to slaughter the Hebrew infants. It is the same spirit that drives the modern abortion industry, which has killed tens of millions in this country alone. The target is the child, the seed, the future. The enemy always seeks to destroy the promise by destroying the children of the promise.
And yet, in all this, we see the sovereign hand of God. Herod acts "according to the time which he had carefully determined from the magi." He thinks he is in control, using his best information. But his careful determination is simply one of the means God is using to fulfill His own purposes. The magi's information leads Herod to set the age limit at two years, but by this time, the holy family is long gone, warned by God to flee to Egypt. Herod's rage is real, his wickedness is culpable, his actions are monstrous, but he is a puppet on a string. He is a tool in the hands of the God he defies. God did not author Herod's sin, but He most certainly governed it, steering it to His own appointed ends, demonstrating that the wrath of man will praise Him.
The Fulfillment of Sorrow (v. 17-18)
Matthew then connects this local tragedy to a much larger, older story of grief.
"Then what had been spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled, saying, 'A VOICE WAS HEARD IN RAMAH, WEEPING AND GREAT MOURNING, RACHEL WEEPING FOR HER CHILDREN; AND SHE WAS REFUSING TO BE COMFORTED, BECAUSE THEY WERE NO MORE.'" (Matthew 2:17-18)
Now, we must be careful here. How is this a "fulfillment"? If you turn back to Jeremiah 31, you will find that the prophet is speaking about the grief of the Babylonian exile. Ramah was a staging ground where the Jewish captives were gathered before being marched off to Babylon. Rachel, the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, was buried near Bethlehem. Jeremiah personifies her as the mother of Israel, weeping from her tomb as she sees her descendants carried away into bondage. Her children "were no more" in the land of promise.
So, was Jeremiah predicting Herod's massacre? Not in a simple, one-to-one sense. Matthew's understanding of "fulfillment" is much richer and deeper than that. He sees history as a series of patterns, or types, established by God. The weeping in Jeremiah's day was a real and historic sorrow. It was the result of Israel's sin and God's judgment, executed by a tyrannical pagan king. Now, in Bethlehem, that same pattern is recurring, but with greater intensity. Once again, a tyrant is afflicting the children of the promise. Once again, the mothers of Israel are weeping for children who "are no more."
This is a typological fulfillment. The first sorrow was a type, a foreshadowing, of this one. The grief of the exile pointed forward to the grief that would surround the coming of the Messiah. Why? To show us that Christ was born into the very heart of our fallen, sorrowful world. He did not come to a world that was ready and waiting with open arms. He came to a world of Herods and weeping Rachels. He came into the exile itself in order to lead the ultimate exodus.
The key to understanding this is to read the rest of Jeremiah 31. Immediately after the verse Matthew quotes, God speaks a word of profound comfort to Rachel. "Thus says the LORD: 'Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears; for your work shall be rewarded,' declares the LORD, 'And they shall return from the land of the enemy. There is hope for your future,' declares the LORD, 'And your children shall return to their own border'" (Jer. 31:16-17). The chapter then goes on to promise the New Covenant.
Matthew knows his Bible. By quoting the verse about weeping, he is deliberately evoking the entire context. He is telling us that just as the sorrow of the exile was followed by the promise of return and restoration, so also this new, deeper sorrow will be answered by a new, greater restoration. The child who escaped Herod's sword is the one who will make that promise a reality. He is the one who will ultimately dry Rachel's tears. The weeping is real, the grief is profound, but it is not the final word. The final word is hope. The final word is resurrection.
Conclusion: The Only True Comfort
So what do we take from this dark episode? We see here the collision of two ethics, two ways of life. Herod's way is to preserve his life by taking the lives of others. Christ's way is to give His life to save the lives of others. Herod sits on a throne built on fear and death. Christ hangs on a cross that becomes a throne of life and grace.
This passage forces us to confront the doctrine of God's sovereignty over evil. This is a hard truth, but it is the only foundation for true comfort. If God is not sovereign over the rage of Herod, then He is not God. If the slaughter of the innocents was a rogue event that took God by surprise, then we have no guarantee that He can work all things for good. Our comfort is not that God prevents all tragedy. Our comfort is that He governs all tragedy. He uses the free, wicked choices of sinful men to accomplish His perfect, righteous plan. The cross itself is the ultimate example: the most wicked act in human history was at the same time the most glorious act of God's salvation, "delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God" (Acts 2:23).
For the mothers of Bethlehem, their grief was real and terrible. They were not given a theological lecture in their moment of pain. They wept, and their weeping was righteous. But Matthew, writing with the perspective of the resurrection, shows us that their weeping was not meaningless. Those children were the first martyrs for Christ. They died in His place, a faint shadow of the one who would truly die in our place. Their deaths were caught up in the grand story of redemption.
And so it is with our sorrows. We live in a world full of Herods. We see the innocent suffer, and we weep. And we should. But we do not weep as those who have no hope. We weep knowing that the king who escaped Herod's sword has conquered Herod's master. He has defeated sin and death. He is the one who says, "Behold, I am making all things new." He is the one who will one day wipe away every tear from our eyes. The voice of weeping is heard in Ramah, yes, but the voice of triumph is heard from an empty tomb. And that is the only comfort that can stand up to the sorrows of this world.