Bird's-eye view
This short passage is a pivot point within Jeremiah’s great book of consolation (chapters 30-33). After detailing the profound sorrow and pain of exile, God, through His prophet, issues a tender and urgent call to repentance. This is not a vague wish for better behavior but a command to actively return. The language is concrete and practical: set up markers, pay attention to the road you took into this mess, and use that knowledge to come back home. The call is addressed to the "virgin of Israel," a title that simultaneously recalls her ideal calling and highlights the tragedy of her current state as a "faithless daughter."
The climax of the passage is the promise of a "new thing" that Yahweh will create. This divine intervention is the ultimate ground for Israel's hope of return. Her own fickle nature, her tendency to "go here and there," is the problem. The solution must therefore be a creative act of God, something unprecedented. The enigmatic phrase, "A woman will encompass a man," points forward to the ultimate "new thing", the gospel itself. The restoration promised here is not just a political homecoming; it is a spiritual renewal that finds its ultimate fulfillment in the miraculous work of Christ, through whom the scattered and faithless people of God are finally and truly brought home.
Outline
- 1. The Call to Intentional Repentance (Jer 31:21)
- a. Practical Memorials for the Road Home (Jer 31:21a)
- b. A Heart Set on the Highway of Return (Jer 31:21b)
- c. The Tender Appeal to the Virgin of Israel (Jer 31:21c)
- 2. The Rebuke and the Remedy (Jer 31:22)
- a. The Indictment of Faithlessness (Jer 31:22a)
- b. The Promise of a New Creation (Jer 31:22b)
- c. The Enigma of the New Thing: A Woman Encompassing a Man (Jer 31:22c)
Context In Jeremiah
These verses are situated in the heart of what is often called the "Book of Comfort" or "Book of Consolation" in Jeremiah. Chapter 30 began with God's promise to restore the fortunes of Israel and Judah. Chapter 31 continues this theme with some of the most beautiful promises of restoration in all of Scripture. The chapter opens with God declaring His everlasting love for Israel (31:3) and promising to rebuild her (31:4). It speaks of joyful harvests and pilgrimages to Zion. This section directly precedes the most famous passage in the book, the promise of the New Covenant (31:31-34). Therefore, our text serves as the immediate precursor to that ultimate promise. It is the call to come back, to turn around, which is the necessary prerequisite for entering into the blessings of the renewed covenant relationship that God is about to detail. The judgment and exile, which dominate the first half of Jeremiah, are the backdrop. The restoration, grounded in God's unilateral grace, is the glorious foreground.
Key Issues
- The Nature of Repentance
- Israel as "Virgin" and "Faithless Daughter"
- God's Creative Power in Salvation
- Messianic Interpretation of "A Woman Will Encompass a Man"
- The Relationship Between Divine Initiative and Human Responsibility
The Road Back
Repentance, in the biblical sense, is never a sentimental feeling of regret. It is a turn. It is a military about-face. And here, God gives His people eminently practical instructions for this maneuver. He tells them to treat their path into exile like a breadcrumb trail. They are to remember every step of the apostasy that led them into this mess, not so they can wallow in it, but so they can reverse the journey. This is a call for clear-eyed, intelligent repentance.
We are often like Israel, wandering and wondering how we got into our current predicament. The answer is almost always that we drifted, we compromised, we took a wrong turn miles back and have been on the wrong road ever since. God's command is to stop, get our bearings, identify the highway we left, and set our hearts toward it. The way back to God is the same way we left, but in reverse. The first step away from God was a proud thought; the first step back is a humble one. The second step away was a cherished sin; the second step back is a confessed and forsaken one. God is not interested in vague apologies; He wants us to set up roadmarks and get on the highway.
Verse by Verse Commentary
21 “Set up roadmarks for yourself, Place for yourself guideposts; Set your heart to the highway, The way by which you went. Return, O virgin of Israel, Return to these your cities.
The command is direct and personal: "for yourself." Repentance is not something that can be done by proxy. Each person, and the nation corporately, must take responsibility. The imagery is of someone on a journey who has gotten lost. The first step is to stop wandering aimlessly and start thinking strategically. Roadmarks and guideposts are intentional aids to memory. Israel is to remember the path of her rebellion. She is to "set her heart," which means to apply her mind, her will, her full attention, to the highway. This is not a call to feel sorry, but to think clearly and act decisively. The appeal, "Return, O virgin of Israel," is full of covenantal pathos. God calls her "virgin," reminding her of her original, consecrated status as His chosen people, set apart for Him. This makes the tragedy of her unfaithfulness all the more poignant. The goal is concrete: "return to these your cities." God's promised restoration is not a floaty, ethereal concept; it involves a return to a real place, to the inheritance He had given them.
22a How long will you go here and there, O faithless daughter?
Here the tender appeal turns to a sharp, loving rebuke. The word for "go here and there" has the sense of wavering, backsliding, or gadding about. It pictures a restless instability, a spiritual fickleness. She is chasing after this idol, then that alliance, looking for security and satisfaction in all the wrong places. God puts His finger on the core issue: she is a faithless daughter. The term "virgin of Israel" described her calling; "faithless daughter" describes her character. The relationship is that of a child to a father, but she has been disloyal and untrustworthy. The question "How long?" carries the ache of a loving father, weary of his child's self-destructive rebellion. There is a point where continued vacillation becomes inexcusable. God is calling for an end to it.
22b For Yahweh has created a new thing in the earth, A woman will encompass a man.”
This is the foundation for the call to repent. Israel cannot return by her own strength or resolve her own fickleness. If she is to be cured of "going here and there," it will require a divine intervention, a creative act. Yahweh, the covenant God who brought the world into being out of nothing, will create a new thing in the earth. This is not a repair job; it is a creation. It is something unprecedented that will reverse the natural order of things. And what is this new thing? "A woman will encompass a man."
This phrase has been interpreted in many ways, but in the context of God doing a "new thing" to solve the problem of faithlessness, the most profound and consistent interpretation points to the virgin birth of Christ. The normal course of events is for the man to pursue and protect the woman, to be the source of strength and initiation. Here, the roles are reversed in a startling way. A woman will surround, protect, or encompass a man. This is not a statement about military strategy or shifting social dynamics. It is a prophecy of the Incarnation. The "new thing" that God creates to save His faithless people is the sending of His Son, conceived in the womb of a virgin by the power of the Holy Spirit. Mary, the woman, encompassed in her womb the Man who is God. This is the ultimate answer to Israel's faithlessness. Her salvation will not come from a mighty male warrior in the conventional sense, but from a child miraculously conceived, a Savior who enters the world in a way that subverts all human expectation.
Application
The road back to God always begins with an honest assessment of how we got lost. Like Israel, we are commanded to set up guideposts, to trace our steps back. Where did the compromise begin? What was the first lie we believed? What small disobedience did we let slide, which then grew into a lifestyle? Repentance requires this kind of clear-eyed thinking. We cannot simply say "I'm sorry" and hope to be magically teleported back to fellowship. We must set our heart to the highway and walk the road of repentance, reversing the foolish steps that led us away.
But while our responsibility is to turn, our ultimate hope is not in the strength of our turning. We are, at heart, faithless sons and daughters, prone to wander. Our hope lies in the "new thing" God has done. Our salvation is not a product of our improved resolve, but a result of God's creative power. He solved the problem of our sin and faithlessness in the most unexpected way imaginable: by sending His Son through the womb of a virgin. The gospel is the ultimate creative act. In Christ, God makes us a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). The old patterns of faithlessness are broken not by our willpower, but by the indwelling power of the Spirit, made possible by the life, death, and resurrection of the Man who was encompassed by a woman. Therefore, when we hear the call to return, we do not look inward to muster up the strength. We look outward to the cross, the ultimate "new thing," and find there both the motive and the power to come home.