Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 31:22

"How long wilt thou go hither and thither, O thou backsliding daughter? for Jehovah hath created a new thing in the earth: a woman shall encompass a man." — Jeremiah 31:22 (ASV)

How long will you go about...?—The word describes the restless pacing to and fro of impatient, unsatisfied desire. The backsliding daughter—i.e., the adulterous yet now penitent wife—is described, like Gomer in the parable or history of Hosea 2:7, as hesitating between her lovers and her husband.

A woman shall compass a man.—The verse is obscure and has received very different interpretations. We should begin our inquiry with the meaning that the translators attached to it. On this point, the following quotation from Shakespeare is decisive:—

“If I can check my erring love, I will;
If not, to compass her I’ll use my skill.”

Two Gentlemen of Verona,Acts 2, Scene 4.

To “compass” is to woo and win. And this, it is believed, provides the true meaning. The Hebrew verb (which presents a striking assonance with the word for “backsliding”) literally means “to go round about,” and this (Psalms 32:7; Psalms 32:10) as an act of reverential tenderness and love. In the normal order of human life, the bridegroom woos the bride.

In the spiritual relationship that the prophet has in view, this will be inverted, and Israel, the erring but repentant wife, will woo her Divine husband. The history of Gomer in Hosea 2:14-20 again presents a striking parallel. A similar inversion of the normal order is indicated, though with a different meaning, in Isaiah 4:1, where the seven women might be said to “compass” the one man. It should be noted that the words used express the contrast of the two sexes in the strongest possible form.

A female shall compass (i.e., woo) a male, possibly as emphasizing the fact that what the prophet describes was an exception to the normal order, not only of human society but of the whole animal society.

By some interpreters (Ewald), the words are rendered “a woman shall be turned into a man;” meaning that the weak will be made strong, as a kind of contrast to the opposite kind of transformation in Jeremiah 30:6. But this gives a far less satisfactory meaning, and the same may be said of such translations as “the woman shall protect the man” and “a woman shall put a man to flight.”

The notion that the words can even in the remotest degree be connected with the mystery of the Incarnation belongs to the region of dreams, and not of realities. Lacking as it does the support of even any allusive reference to it in the New Testament, it can only be regarded—despite the authority of the many Fathers and divines who have adopted it—as the outgrowth of a devout but uncritical imagination.

The word used for “woman,” indeed, absolutely excludes the idea of the virgin-birth.