452 TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND COMMENTSis male (zakar), has become so weakened that he is bent over helpless like a
woman in travail. Here in 31 :22b, the battle-weary soldier is so exhausted that
a female (neqeba) must protect him. Women are the only ones left with
strength. These women do not become men, as some have suggested; they re-
main women, but the roles have changed so that they end up protecting the
men who can no longer protect them. Something similar happened in Ger-
many at the end of World War II, where it was the Triimmerfrauen who took
over the men's role in doing the hard work of cleaning up war damage in the
country. More recently (February, 1997), a movie entitled The Italian Girl in
Algiers was advertised on a San Diego bus with the words "In this one the girl
rescues the boy."
Beginning early, this phrase was given a totally positive meaning, which is
precisely what happened to the ironic questions in 3:1 and 30:7 (see Notes
there). The LXX translated it en soteria perieleusontai anthropoi ("men shall go
around in safety"); the T: "the people, the house of Israel, shall pursue the
Law." Kim}_ii said that the woman shall go after the man, which he interpreted
to mean that the children of Israel shall return to the Lord their God, who will
redeem them (cf. Hos 3:5). Jerome and the Church Fathers interpreted the
phrase as anticipating the miraculous birth of Christ, i.e., the Virgin would be
carrying Christ in her womb, a view that was still prevalent in Calvin's time.
For a survey of various messianic interpretations, see Condamin 1897. Herder
( 183 3 II: 119) acknowledged the hyperbole in the line but said that reference
was to peaceful times in the future when "there shall be so much security
round about that even the wife can give [the husband] protection." Most inter-
pretations by modern commentators, if they make one (and often they do not),
are similarily positive ones.
MESSAGE AND AUDIENCE
Jeremiah here tells Judahites being readied for exile to set up road-markers
when they go, to make signposts, and take careful notice of the highway on
which they have traveled. "Virgin Israel" will return one day to cities it is now
leaving. The word following is bittersweet. Jeremiah asks the "turnable daugh-
ter" how long she will go here and go there, a tendency she had even before
this trek was forced upon her. Then, in a parting word that must be taken as
gentle irony, Jeremiah says that Yahweh has created something new on earth:
the female is protecting the warrior! They all understand.
This poem could have been spoken to exiles leaving Judah in 597 B.C. or in
586, after Jerusalem had fallen. It is not addressed to Northern Israel (pace Hol-
laday), whose departure to Assyria took place long ago. And Carroll's date in
the Persian period is out of the question, although then, the words would surely
take on renewed meaning. As for the poetic core as a whole (30:5-31 :22), which
these verses conclude, a date for its composition and reading must be assigned
after the fall of Jerusalem. In my earlier work I suggested a date of 597 B.C.,