Jeremiah 31:21

"Set thee up waymarks, make thee guideposts; set thy heart toward the highway, even the way by which thou wentest, turn again, O virgin of Israel, turn again to these thy cities. 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."

"O thou backsliding daughter ..." (Jeremiah 31:22). This refers to the actual condition of Israel. God here addressed her as "Virgin of Israel"; but that envisions her status at the time after she receives and obeys the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The glorious promises of the Messianic age most certainly cast their long shadows over these verses.

"A woman shall encompass a man ..." (Jeremiah 31:22). In a word, we agree with Matthew Henry who followed the patristic interpretation of this passage and referred it to "The Incarnation of Christ."[1] Yes, we are aware that practically all of the present crop of commentators reject this interpretation out of hand; but no better interpretation has ever been proposed; and practically all of the current generation of scholars admit that they do not have the slightest idea what the passage means. Moreover the objections that are offered to this very old and satisfactory understanding of the passage have no value at all. For example, Cheyne thought that it was impossible for this to refer to the Virgin Mary's bearing the Christ in her womb, because, he said, "The definite article for woman does not appear, as in Isaiah's promise that `The Virgin' shall conceive."[2] This objection has no weight because the great protoevangel of Genesis 3:15 likewise omits the definite article in the announcement that "The seed of woman" shall bruise the head of Satan, there being no definite article for woman.

Also, let it be noted that whatever is prophesied here, God called it a "new thing in the earth," a description that cannot possibly apply to any other explanation of this passage that we have ever seen; but it does apply to the virgin birth of the Son of God. Such explanations as, "The female shall protect the strong man, or the woman shall turn the man,"[3] or "a woman shall embrace a man,"[4] are certainly not any "new thing in the earth." Until the critics who do their best to remove every prophecy of the Son of God from the Old Testament can tell us what this passage means, we shall cling to the only explanation that has ever made any sense at all.