Rachel Weeping for Her Children
1 “At that time,” says Yahweh, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they will be my people.” 2 Yahweh says, “The people who survive the sword found favor in the wilderness; even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest.” 3 Yahweh appeared of old to me, saying, “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore I have drawn you with loving kindness. 4 I will build you again, and you will be built, O virgin of Israel. You will again be adorned with your tambourines, and will go out in the dances of those who make merry. 5 Again you will plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria. The planters will plant, and will enjoy its fruit. 6 For there will be a day that the watchmen on the hills of Ephraim cry, ‘Arise! Let’s go up to Zion to Yahweh our God.’” 7 For Yahweh says, “Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout for the chief of the nations. Publish, praise, and say, ‘Yahweh, save your people, the remnant of Israel!’ 8 Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the uttermost parts of the earth, along with the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her who travails with child together. They will return as a great company. 9 They will come with weeping. I will lead them with petitions. I will cause them to walk by rivers of waters, in a straight way in which they won’t stumble; for I am a father to Israel. Ephraim is my firstborn. 10 “Hear Yahweh’s word, you nations, and declare it in the distant islands. Say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd does his flock.’ 11 For Yahweh has ransomed Jacob, and redeemed him from the hand of him who was stronger than he. 12 They will come and sing in the height of Zion, and will flow to the goodness of Yahweh, to the grain, to the new wine, to the oil, and to the young of the flock and of the herd. Their soul will be as a watered garden. They will not sorrow any more at all. 13 Then the virgin will rejoice in the dance, the young men and the old together; for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow. 14 I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people will be satisfied with my goodness,” says Yahweh. 15 Yahweh says: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children. She refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.” 16 Yahweh says: “Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears, for your work will be rewarded,” says Yahweh. “They will come again from the land of the enemy. 17 There is hope for your latter end,” says Yahweh. “Your children will come again to their own territory. 18 “I have surely heard Ephraim grieving thus, ‘You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as an untrained calf. Turn me, and I will be turned, for you are Yahweh my God. 19 Surely after that I was turned. I repented. After that I was instructed. I struck my thigh. I was ashamed, yes, even confounded, because I bore the reproach of my youth.’ 20 Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I still earnestly remember him. Therefore my heart yearns for him. I will surely have mercy on him,” says Yahweh. 21 “Set up road signs. Make guideposts. Set your heart toward the highway, even the way by which you went. Turn again, virgin of Israel. Turn again to these your cities. 22 How long will you go here and there, you backsliding daughter? For Yahweh has created a new thing on the earth: a woman will encompass a man.”
The restoration is promised first to the tribes lost a century earlier, and the mother weeping over the deportation road is told her work will be paid.
The chapter opens with a memory of the wilderness as the place where a people who survived the sword found favor, which is where the book began its case Jeremiah 2:2. And then the sentence the whole section rests on: I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore I have drawn you with loving kindness. The love is stated as the cause of the drawing rather than as its result, which settles the order of everything that follows — nothing in these chapters is offered as a reward.
What is remarkable is who it is offered to. Tambourines and dances for the virgin of Israel, vineyards planted again on the mountains of Samaria, and watchmen on the hills of Ephraim calling Arise! Let's go up to Zion. Samaria and Ephraim are the northern kingdom, deported a century before Jeremiah was born and long written off. The restoration begins with the case everyone had closed, and it heals the schism as it goes — northern watchmen calling people south to a temple their kingdom had rejected from the day it was founded.
The travelers are then listed, and the list is the argument. God brings them from the north country along with the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her who travails with child together. Those are precisely the people who cannot make a long march, and they are named rather than quietly left behind. A straight way, rivers of water, no stumbling — the road is described in terms of what these particular travelers need. And the reason given is a relationship: I am a father to Israel. Ephraim is my firstborn.
Then the sound of weeping in Ramah, which is not a poetic location. Ramah is where the captives were assembled in chains before the march to Babylon Jeremiah 40:1, a holding yard on the road out, and Rachel — the mother of the northern tribes, buried in that country — is heard refusing to be comforted because her children are gone. The answer she is given does not tell her the grief is misplaced. It tells her the grief is an investment: your work will be rewarded... They will come again from the land of the enemy. There is hope for your latter end.
The repentance that follows is quoted from Ephraim's own mouth, and its central request is one of the most important sentences in the book: Turn me, and I will be turned, for you are Yahweh my God. A people whose habit of evil had been compared to skin color and to a leopard's spots Jeremiah 13:23 asks to be turned rather than promising to turn, and the reply is not a rebuke but a father's — my heart yearns for him. I will surely have mercy on him. Practical instructions come immediately after: set up road signs and guideposts, mark the highway, because the way home is the way they went out. The chapter's last line is famously obscure, a new thing created on the earth in which a woman encompasses a man, and the English translations divide widely over what it means. It stands where the return is being promised, and the text says no more than that.
held with reason What this mark means