1The LORD showed me, and, look, two baskets of figs were set out before the LORD’s temple after Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia had exiled Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah from Jerusalem and the nobles of Judah and the craftsmen and the smiths and brought them to Babylonia. 2In one basket were very bad figs that could not be eaten because they were so bad. 3And the LORD said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” And I said, “Figs. The good figs are very good and the bad figs are very bad, which cannot be eaten because they are so bad.” 4And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 5“Thus said the LORD God of Israel: Like these good figs, so will I recognize for good the exiles of Judah whom I sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans. 6And I will set My eyes on them for good and bring them back to this land and rebuild them and not destroy and plant them and not uproot. 7And I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the LORD. And they shall be a people for Me, and I Myself will be God for them, for they shall turn back to Me with all their heart. 8And like the bad figs that cannot be eaten because they are so bad, thus will I make Zedekiah king of Judah and his nobles and the remnant of Jerusalem remaining in this land and those dwelling in the land of Egypt. 9And I will make them a horror for evil to all the kingdoms of the earth, a disgrace and a byword and a taunt and a curse in all the places where I will scatter them. 10And I will send against them sword and famine and pestilence until they come to an end on the land I gave to them and to their forefathers.”
CHAPTER 24 NOTES
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1. showed me. Very literally, this verb means “caused me to see.” It is regularly used for prophetic passages involving vision.
after Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia had exiled Jeconiah. This took place in 597 B.C.E., a decade before the final destruction of Jerusalem.
the craftsmen and the smiths. These workers, respectively in wood and stone and in metal, were presumably deported in order to prevent the manufacture of arms in Judah.
3. What do you see, Jeremiah? This is God’s formulaic question after He has shown a vision to a prophet.
7. a heart to know. As elsewhere, the heart is conceived as the seat of understanding.
8. the remnant of Jerusalem remaining in this land. As Lundbom notes, this prophecy reverses conventional expectations: it is the Judahites who were exiled who will prove to be the saving remnant, whereas those who remained in the kingdom of Judah will be like the bad figs, unfit for consumption and hence destined to be thrown away.
9. And I will make them a horror. The prophecy of destruction in this verse and the next is entirely composed of stereotypical phrases that express humiliation (verse 9) and destruction (verse 10). One might justifiably say that this is boilerplate prophecy, at least in stylistic terms. It may be that prose prophecy lends itself to this tendency, whereas the pressure to formulate parallel terms and metaphors in the poetic prophecy more often, though not invariably, leads to original expression.