Set thee up way marks, make thee high heaps,.... Of stones, raised up as pillars, or like pyramids; or upright, as palm trees, which signification the word has; to be marks and signs, to know the way again upon a return.
The Targum is,"O congregation of Israel, remember the right works of thy fathers; pour out supplications; in bitterness set thy heart.''And so the Vulgate Latin version interprets the last clause, "put on bitternesses", without any sense; so Cocceius.
The design of the words is to put the Jews upon thoughts of returning to their own land, and to prepare for it;set thine heart towards the highway, [even] the way [which] thou wentest; from Judea to Babylon, or into other countries; think of going the same way back again; for, as there was a highway from Judea, there is one to it; let thine heart be upon returning that way.
Jarchi reads, "the way which I went"; that is, the way in which the Lord went with the people; the right way in which he guided and directed them; and in which following him, they could not err; see Isa 35:8.
The Targum is,"consider the works which thou hast done, whether they are fight, when thou goest in a way afar off;''turn again, O virgin of Israel, turn again to these thy cities; an invitation and encouragement to the Jews to turn again to their own land; as from the Babylonish captivity, so from all lands in the latter day; which is yet to be fulfilled, and to which the prophecy more properly belongs.