Jeremiah (1-31) 31:21 Commentary and Bible Study

‘Set thee up waymarks, make thee high heaps: set thine heart toward the highway, even the way which thou wentest: turn again, O virgin of Israel, turn again to these thy cities.’ You are going into exile, God says, but you will return again, and therefore you should prepare for your return by setting up waymarks or indications of the way back to Judah from Babylon. This is either to be done on the outward journey to Babylon in anticipation of coming back, or it is the work of scouts going ahead to mark the way for those coming behind with cairns or signposts of some sort.‘How long wilt thou go about, O thou backsliding daughter? for the LORD hath created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man.’ This acknowledged to be a difficult verse. The church fathers and many others set up a tradition of seeing in this verse another promise of a virgin conceiving, but that is a big stretch. It is not like the famous prophecy in Isaiah 7. This is about something else. The previous verses have been painting a picture of the men of the land, those in captivity, being people of weakness and misery, putting their heads between their knees and weeping because there was nothing they could do about their situation, and there was no hope of deliverance. They were, as it were, devoid of all grit and ambition and desire for anything better. God has said to them, ‘Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears.’ It is probably that which is referred to, here in verse 22: ‘How long wilt thou go about O backsliding daughter’, as though they are not getting down to prayer; they are prevaricating. ‘For the Lord hath created a new thing in the earth’ – this is in the captivity – ‘a woman shall compass a man’, be greater than a man. Read this way, it is God’s censure of the men for the way they are behaving and the observation that the women are turning out to be more forthright than the men. It's very unlikely this has anything to do with the birth of the Messiah, but that was a view that came in with the church fathers. Other suggested interpretations are to see the woman as Old Testament or New Testament church which is able to overcome its more powerful enemies in spite of its weakness.‘Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; As yet they shall use this speech in the land of Judah and in the cities thereof, when I shall bring again their captivity; The LORD bless thee, O habitation of justice, and mountain of holiness. ²⁴ And there shall dwell in Judah itself, and in all the cities thereof together, husbandmen, and they that go forth with flocks. ²⁵ For I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul. ²⁶ Upon this I awaked, and beheld; and my sleep was sweet unto me.’ To stir up their anticipation and happiness in what God will do for them, he tells them what that blessed state will cause them to say. The word will flow from the naturally at the understanding of the visible and real blessing which they are enjoying when they have returned from captivity: ‘The LORD bless thee, O habitation of justice, and mountain of holiness.’ But this does not accurately describe the state of Jerusalem after the seventy years captivity in Babylon. There were still troubles at that time and they existed as a vassal state of Persia. The terms used are too exalted to be true of earthly Jerusalem at that time. Rather they refer to the gospel age and the release that the gospel brings from captivity to the devil. Only after the new birth will there be genuine holiness in the heart. Even then it will be mixed with sin, the old nature is still left in the believer. We must wait until the resurrection to see the ultimate fulfilment of these words when God’s people will be raised up in glory and they will be rid of the body of sin forever. Nevertheless Jeremiah uses the pastoral language of the time to describe the wonderful state that God’s people will be in – a prediction with three layers of fulfilment: literal after the return, spiritual in the gospel age, and perfect in heaven. What God gives will more than make up for the suffering experienced in Babylon, and the believers they will find ‘that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us’ (Romans 8:18). Upon hearing this, Jeremiah awakes from the dream in which he received this revelation, and his state of mind is sweet to him because he knows these thing are real and they are true.