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The LORD showed me, and behold, two baskets of figs were set before the LORD’s temple, after Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the princes of Judah, with the craftsmen and smiths, from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon.
Verse 1. Engravers. Hebrew “those who enclose.” 4 Kennicott. 24:14 and 1 Kennicott. 13:19.
One basket had very good figs, like the figs that are first-ripe; and the other basket had very bad figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad.
Verse 2. Season. Appearing in autumn and ripe in spring. Mic. 7:1. Calmet.
Then the LORD asked me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” I said, “Figs. The good figs are very good, and the bad are very bad, so bad that they can’t be eaten.”
The LORD’s word came to me, saying,
“The LORD, the God of Israel says: ‘Like these good figs, so I will regard the captives of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans, as good.
Verse 5. Regard. Lit. “know,” with love. Psalms 1:6. Bible.—Jechonias was treated with honour, (4 Kennicott. 25:27) as well as Daniel (2:48) and Zorobabel, of the same family. Calmet. 29:5. The captives, under Sedecias, (verse 8) were much more abused. Calmet. 29:17. Calmet.—This is the literal sense; the mystical shews that the good shall be rewarded. Worthington.
For I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them again to this land. I will build them, and not pull them down. I will plant them, and not pluck them up.
Verse 6. Up, till the Messias appear, and the true Israel of God, his disciples, to whom the promises chiefly pertain. They will continue for ever. If this answer does not give satisfaction, as it ought, we may say that the Jews did not comply with the condition, and were therefore abandoned to the Romans. Calmet.
I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD. They will be my people, and I will be their God; for they will return to me with their whole heart.
“‘As the bad figs, which can’t be eaten, they are so bad,’ surely the LORD says, ‘So I will give up Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt.
Verse 8. Egypt, to which they fled contrary to the prophet’s advice. 4 Kennicott. 25:26.
I will even give them up to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth for evil, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places where I will drive them.
I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence among them, until they are consumed from off the land that I gave to them and to their fathers.’”