As Jesus is led to crucifixion, a large crowd follows, including women who mourn and lament for him. Jesus addresses them as 'Daughters of Jerusalem' and tells them to weep instead for themselves and their children.
The scene joins public mourning with prophetic warning.
Ancient Jewish and Mediterranean mourning could be openly vocal and physical rather than private and restrained. Lamentation, weeping, gestures, and communal participation accompanied death and disaster. 'Daughter' or 'daughter of' a city is also familiar biblical language for a city's inhabitants personified collectively.
Jesus' shocking statement that people will call the barren blessed reverses the ordinary cultural valuation of fertility and children because the coming suffering will be so severe.
The social conventions make the scene more than sympathetic spectators crying along a road. The women perform recognizable lament for a condemned man, and Jesus redirects that lament into a prophetic mourning for Jerusalem.
The reversal concerning childlessness communicates the extremity of the disaster: circumstances normally regarded as sorrowful will appear preferable to watching one's children suffer.