NATIVITY By Mike Herron

weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”

Ramah was the city of great sorrow where the Jews were murdered and dispersed into Babylon after the fall of Jerusalem. Rachel died and was buried near Bethlehem as she gave birth to her son Benjamin. The mothers of Herod’s day ‘lived near Rachel’s grave, and many of them descended from Rachel; and therefore their lamentations are elegantly represented by Rachel’s weeping.’ 8 19 After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 20 and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.” Herod died a horrible death; ‘entrails rotting…putrefied and producing worms, unbearable stench, convulsions, prolonged, useless attempts at cures, bloody, murderous thoughts…’ 9 The angel, with whom Joseph is growing familiar, gives him his third dream and direction. ‘Those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead…’ echoes God’s words to Moses when he was told to return to Egypt to deliver Israel; ‘Return to Egypt, for all those who wanted to kill you have died.’ (Ex 4:19 NLT) Jesus, the new Moses, was commanded to go in the opposite direction to be the spiritual deliverer of His people. 21 So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Joseph assumed that Judea and Jerusalem, the heart of the Jewish religious activity, would be the proper place to raise the Messiah. Archelaus ‘began his reign by massacring some three