Thus says the LORD: See 2.2.

A voice is heard … lamentation is similar to the construction “a sound of wailing is heard” in 9.19, where voice in the present passage is there rendered “sound” and lamentation is translated “wailing.” For lamentation see the comment on “wailing” at 9.10. As in 9.19, translators may need to supply a subject for the hearing in the first two lines of what the LORD says, as in “People can hear a sound in Ramah. It is the sound of bitter weeping [or, of someone weeping bitterly].”

Ramah is literally “a height,” but as a name it refers to a town in the territory of Benjamin on the border between the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, about 8 kilometers (5 miles) north of Jerusalem. Some translators have said “town of Ramah.”

Bitter weeping is more literally “weeping of bitterness”; the noun “bitterness” is earlier used in 6.26, and elsewhere in the Old Testament only in Hos 12.14.

Rachel was one of Jacob’s wives and the mother of Joseph (Gen 30.22-24) and Benjamin (Gen 35.16-18). Here she represents all of the people of Israel. But translators should generally not state that in their translations.

She refuses to be comforted for her children: In many languages this must be changed to an active construction, “she refuses to let anyone comfort her over the loss of her children.”

Because they are not is a reference to the deportation of northern Israel by the Assyrians in 721 B.C. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch translates “for they have all been taken away.” Good News Translation has simply “they are gone.” In Matt 2.18 this verse is applied to Herod’s murder of the children of Bethlehem.

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Jeremiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2003. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .