Jeremiah 31:22

OLBHeb;

That the Jews are here meant by the backsliding daughter is out of question; but what going about is here intended is not so plain. Some interpret it of their running after idols; some, of their seeking help from foreign nations, instead of applying themselves unto God; others, of their wandering up and down in captivity. But the greater difficulty is about this new thing, which the Lord saith he will create in the new earth, a woman compassing a man; some by women understanding feeble persons that should prevail against strong men. But the two interpretations of this difficult passage, which seem most reasonably to contend for preference, are,

1. The interpretation of those who think it contains a promise both of the Jewish church in its time, and of the gospel church after the Jewish church's period, prevailing, over all its enemies, whether temporal or spiritual; though, considering the paucity of the church's members, with the multitude of its enemies, and their power, it seemed as strange a thing as for a woman to prevail against a strong and mighty man. This the learned author of the English Annotations judgeth the true and genuine sense of these words.

2. Others interpret this woman to be the Virgin Mary, who was to enclose in her womb the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom the converted Jews were to adhere; which sense neither Mr. Calvin nor our learned English Annotator approve of. But it being the received sense of very many interpreters, it is fit we should hear their reasons, which are,

1. They urge the particle yk for God, they say, here gives the reason why the Jews should desire to return into the country of Judea, because the Messias was to be born there.

2. They urge the term created, the body of Christ being not begotten by man, but created by God, though of the flesh of the Virgin.

3. They say this indeed was a new thing. It was a new thing for a virgin to become a mother, still remaining a virgin, and to be the mother of him who was God blessed for ever, though not the mother of the Divine nature; for so Christ answered the type of Melchisedec, without father as man, without mother as God.

4. All other encompassings of a man they say were as well out of Judea as in it, this was in Judea only.

5. The word translated woman in Scripture they say always signifies a particular individual woman, which could be no other than the Virgin.

6. They say the whole context refers to benefits coming by Christ, therefore he must certainly be the man here intended.

7. They urge that this prophecy follows Jeremiah 31:15, which, Matthew 2:8, is applied by the evangelist to Herod's murder of the infants upon the birth of Christ. But on the other side it is objected,

1. That the verb bbo is never used in Scripture to signify such an encompassing.

2. That the word translated a man, signifying a strong man, doth not properly agree to an infant in the mother's belly. But it is again replied,

1. That this is not the only word in Scripture that is but once read in the same sense.

2. That the Word signifieth any encompassing, and may be properly applied to the Virgin's womb encompassing an infant. And for the word translated man, they say it is applied to a new-born infant, Job 3:3 Isaiah 9:6; that it is applied to God, Deuteronomy 10:17, and to Christ, Malachi 13:7, compared with Matthew 26:31. In a matter wherein so many learned men are divided, it is enough for me to give their opinions and reasons, leaving my reader to his own judgment, in a matter wherein neither his faith nor holiness are much concerned; for the question is not concerning the thing, whether Christ was encompassed in the womb of a woman, which is plain enough from other scriptures, but only whether that be the sense of the phrase here.