Jeremiah 31:22

God rebukes Israel's wavering and announces a 'new thing': 'a woman shall encompass a man.' The meaning of this phrase is genuinely debated among faithful interpreters.

Cross-references · 25

• Jer 49:4Why do you boast in the valleys, your flowing valley, backsliding daughter? You trusted in her treasures, saying, ‘Who will come to me?’
• Jer 7:24But they didn’t listen nor turn their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.
• Matt 1:21She shall give birth to a son. You shall call his name Jesus, for it is he who shall save his people from their sins.”
• Luke 1:34–35Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, seeing I am a virgin?”
• Jer 2:18Now what do you gain by going to Egypt, to drink the waters of the Shihor? Or why do you to go on the way to Assyria, to drink the waters of the River?
• Hos 8:5Let Samaria throw out his calf idol! My anger burns against them! How long will it be until they are capable of purity?
• Jer 3:6Moreover, Yahweh said to me in the days of Josiah the king, “Have you seen that which backsliding Israel has done? She has gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and has played the prostitute there.
• Jer 2:23“How can you say, ‘I am not defiled. I have not gone after the Baals’? See your way in the valley. Know what you have done. You are a swift dromedary traversing her ways;
• Num 16:30But if Yahweh makes a new thing, and the ground opens its mouth, and swallows them up, with all that belong to them, and they go down alive into Sheol; then you shall understand that these men have despised Yahweh.”
• Jer 3:22Return, you backsliding children, and I will heal your backsliding. “Behold, we have come to you; for you are Yahweh our God.
• Isa 7:14Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin will conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
• Hos 11:7My people are determined to turn from me. Though they call to the Most High, he certainly won’t exalt them.
• Gen 3:15I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.”
• Jer 2:36Why do you go about so much to change your ways? You will be ashamed of Egypt also, as you were ashamed of Assyria.
• Jer 4:14Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved. How long shall your evil thoughts lodge within you?
• Hos 4:16For Israel has behaved extremely stubbornly, like a stubborn heifer. Then how will Yahweh feed them like a lamb in a meadow.
• Jer 3:14“Return, backsliding children,” says Yahweh; “for I am a husband to you. I will take one of you from a city, and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion.
• Jer 13:27I have seen your abominations, even your adulteries, and your neighing, the lewdness of your prostitution, on the hills in the field. Woe to you, Jerusalem! You will not be made clean; how long shall it yet be?”
• Jer 8:4–6“Moreover you shall tell them, ‘Yahweh says: “‘Shall men fall, and not rise up again? Shall one turn away, and not return?
• Jer 3:11–12Yahweh said to me, “Backsliding Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah.
• Hos 14:4“I will heal their waywardness. I will love them freely; for my anger is turned away from him.
• Zech 7:11But they refused to listen, and turned their backs, and stopped their ears, that they might not hear.
• Jer 14:7Though our iniquities testify against us, work for your name’s sake, Yahweh; for our rebellions are many. We have sinned against you.
• Gal 4:4But when the fullness of the time came, God sent out his Son, born to a woman, born under the law,
• Jer 3:8I saw when, for this very cause, that backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a bill of divorce, yet treacherous Judah, her sister, had no fear; but she also went and played the prostitute.

Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.