The Great Reversal: A Sermon on Jeremiah 31:21-22
Introduction: The Homeward Road
The book of Jeremiah is a book of tears, a book of judgment, a book of covenantal lawsuits. God, through His prophet, brings a case against His people for their adulterous rebellion. They have chased after every worthless idol, they have broken every vow, and the consequences are dire: exile, destruction, and desolation. But Jeremiah is also a book of breathtaking hope. Right in the middle of these pronouncements of doom, God plants a garden. Chapters 30 through 33 are often called the "Book of Consolation," and they contain some of the most glorious promises of restoration in all of Scripture. Our text today is found right in the heart of that garden.
The context is the promise of a new exodus. God is going to bring His people back from the lands of their captivity. But this is not just a geographical return. It is a spiritual return. It is a return to covenant faithfulness, a return to Him. The problem with the first exodus, and the covenant at Sinai, was not with the law, but with the people. They were stiff-necked, hard-hearted, and constitutionally unable to keep the covenant. As Jeremiah says a few verses later, it was a covenant "that they broke, though I was their husband" (Jer. 31:32). So, for this new exodus to be any different, something fundamental must change. God must do something new.
Our passage today describes the beginning of that homeward journey. It is a call to repentance, a chastisement for indecision, and a cryptic, magnificent promise of a "new thing" that God will create in the earth. This new thing is the engine of the new covenant. It is the power that makes the return possible. It is the great reversal of the fall, the undoing of the curse, and the foundation of our hope. We are being called to set our hearts to the highway, but we must understand that this is a road we cannot travel in our own strength. It is a road paved by a divine, creative act.
The Text
“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.
How long will you go here and there,
O faithless daughter?
For Yahweh has created a new thing in the earth,
A woman will encompass a man.”
(Jeremiah 31:21-22 LSB)
The Call to Return (v. 21)
We begin with the urgent and practical command to come home.
"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." (Jeremiah 31:21)
This is the language of repentance. Repentance is not a vague, sentimental feeling of regret. It is a decisive, practical action. It means to turn around. God tells Israel to actively mark the path back. "Set up roadmarks... place guideposts." This is a call to be deliberate. You wandered into exile thoughtlessly, chasing your lusts, but you must return intentionally. You must pay attention. The "highway" is the path they took into captivity. The road of sin that led you away from God is the same road, in reverse, that you must take to return to Him. You must retrace your steps of disobedience with steps of obedience.
Notice what God calls her: "O virgin of Israel." This is a staggering display of grace. In reality, Israel has been anything but a virgin. She has been a harlot, a faithless daughter, an adulterous wife. Jeremiah has spent chapter after chapter detailing her spiritual promiscuity. But in grace, God addresses her according to her covenant ideal. He calls her what He is going to make her. This is the logic of the gospel. God does not call the righteous; He calls sinners and, in calling them, makes them righteous. He sees us not as we are in our sin, but as we are in Christ. He calls the church His bride, His virgin, even while she is still stained and wrinkled, because He is committed to washing her and presenting her to Himself without blemish (Eph. 5:25-27).
This call to "return" is a summons to remember who you are supposed to be. It is a call to come back to your designated place, "to these your cities." God has a place for His people, a place of order, community, and blessing. The exile was a state of dislocation. Repentance is a return to our proper place under God's authority and in His land.
The Rebuke for Hesitation (v. 22a)
But despite this gracious call, Israel hesitates. She dithers. And so the Lord rebukes her.
"How long will you go here and there, O faithless daughter?" (Jeremiah 31:22a)
The phrase "go here and there" speaks of wandering, vacillating, and indecision. She is spiritually restless, flitting from one thing to another, unwilling to commit to the hard road home. This is the picture of a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. She wants the comfort of home without the discipline of the journey. She wants the blessings of the covenant without the obligations of faithfulness.
And here, God calls her what she is in her present behavior: a "faithless daughter." The contrast with "virgin of Israel" is sharp and deliberate. It highlights the tension between God's gracious calling and her sinful reluctance. This is a tension every Christian understands. We are saints who sin. We are virgins who are often faithless. We are called to the highway, but our feet drag. We know the way home, but the distractions of the far country are still alluring. God's question hangs in the air for us as well: "How long?" How long will you halt between two opinions? How long will you try to serve two masters? How long will you wander in the wilderness of your own indecision when the promised land awaits?
The Divine Solution: The New Thing (v. 22b)
Israel's hesitation reveals her fundamental problem. She cannot return on her own. Her will is bound. Her heart is faithless. If anything is to change, God must intervene. And He promises to do just that.
"For Yahweh has created a new thing in the earth, A woman will encompass a man." (Jeremiah 31:22b)
This is the reason she should stop hesitating. This is the power that makes her return possible. The word for "created" here is bara, the same word used in Genesis 1:1 for creation out of nothing. This is not a slight adjustment or a minor course correction. This is a radical, supernatural, creative act of God. It is something unprecedented, something that will change the rules of the game.
And what is this new thing? "A woman will encompass a man." This is a famously difficult phrase, but the context of redemptive history makes its meaning clear. In the natural order of things, established after the fall, the man is the head, the protector, the initiator. The woman is the helper. But here, the roles are stunningly reversed. A woman will "encompass" a man. The word can mean to surround, to protect, to go after, or to court. In every sense, it is a reversal of the established pattern.
What does this point to? Many of the church fathers rightly saw this as a prophecy of the virgin birth of Christ. In the garden, the curse was pronounced: the serpent would strike the heel of the woman's seed (Gen. 3:15). The promise of salvation was tied to a child born of woman. Here, that promise is amplified. A woman, Mary, will "encompass" in her womb the God-man, Jesus Christ. This is indeed a "new thing" in the earth. A creature containing the Creator. A virgin conceiving without a man. This is the ultimate creative act of God, the incarnation, which makes the new covenant possible.
But there is more. The man here is also a picture of Christ, and the woman is a picture of the Church. The old Israel was a faithless bride who was constantly wandering away from her husband, Yahweh. But under the new covenant, powered by the incarnation and atonement of Christ, a new reality is created. The Church, the Bride of Christ, will pursue her husband. Instead of being the reluctant, wandering daughter, she will be a loving, devoted bride who actively seeks and surrounds her Lord. The love of Christ will so capture her heart that she will turn from her harlotries and cling to Him alone. He makes us willing.
This is the great reversal. The first Eve was deceived and led her husband into sin. The new Eve, the Church, redeemed by the second Adam, will cling to her husband in righteousness. The faithless daughter becomes the faithful bride. This is the "new thing" that God creates. He gives us a new heart, a heart that desires Him, a heart that sets itself to the highway and runs toward home.
Conclusion: The Power to Return
So what does this mean for us? It means that our repentance, our return to God, is not something we conjure up from the depths of our own fickle hearts. Our ability to set up roadmarks and walk the highway home is a gift, purchased and secured by the "new thing" God has done in Christ.
The call to "Return, O virgin of Israel" is a call to us, the Church. We are that virgin, addressed in grace. The rebuke, "How long will you go here and there, O faithless daughter?" is also for us, exposing our own spiritual indecisiveness and compromise. We are constantly tempted to wander off the highway.
But the promise is our anchor. "For Yahweh has created a new thing in the earth." That new thing is the gospel. It is the fact that God became man in the womb of a virgin to save us from our sins. It is the fact that He has sent His Spirit to create in us a new heart, a heart that loves His law and desires to walk in His ways. The power for our sanctification is the same power that created the world out of nothing.
Therefore, do not despair at your weakness. Do not be paralyzed by your faithlessness. Look to the new thing God has done. Look to Christ. The reason you can return is because He has come. The reason you can be a faithful bride is because He has been a faithful husband, even to the point of death. He is the one who turns our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. He is the one who causes the faithless daughter to become the loving bride who encompasses her man. Set your heart to the highway, yes, but do so knowing that the road has been paved, the price has been paid, and the power to walk it has been given to you by the one who makes all things new.