This chapter has the simple title, ‘Two Baskets of Figs’. God says that He will keep His promise to return His people to the land and He does so with the sign of good figs and bad figs.
It seems that this chapter was intended to encourage the people in exile. Those who were left behind in Judah felt that they were highly favoured and therefore felt proud of their position. They were taking the possessions off those who had been taken away and were probably thinking that they were the lucky ones. This little parable of the Two Baskets of Figs would show them how wrong they were.
The first verse tells us Jehoiachin, the officials, the skilled workers and the artisans of Judah were carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar shortly after Jehoiachin and others were carried into Babylon’, Jeremiah 24:1. So, this would have been about 597 B.C. It was during this time that the two baskets of figs were placed in front of the temple, Jeremiah 24:1.
As we shall see, one of the baskets represents the people who were left behind and were not captured by the Babylonians and the other basket represents the people who were captured and sent into Babylonian exile. God is sending Judah to Babylon for her own good, not just for the sake of it and it worked for good. Why?
Because in captivity many turned back to God, they saw what it was all about. They gave up the idols and never returned to them when they returned to their homeland. Ezra tells this well. Captivity was certainly to purify Israel and it did and when they returned they were prepared to serve God. In captivity, they built a synagogue.
Selected people had already been taken into captivity in 606 B.C. Ezekiel and Daniel had been taken away in the first group of captives. Now the cream of the nation, i.e., craftsmen and others, are going to be taken away. 2 Kings 24:10-17, tells us who went to Babylon on this occasion. The teaching of this parable seems to be that it was the people who were left in Judah that were inferior to those taken into Babylon.
Zedekiah surrounded himself with a group of people who wanted to make an alliance with Egypt so that they had the strength to counter-attack any further assault from Babylon. This brought about the second siege of Jerusalem.
This is when many people were murdered, the temple was destroyed, and the city was completely ruined. So those who remained in Judah were worse off than those taken at the first siege of Jerusalem. The final siege lasted one and a half years and was one of the worst in history. So bad was this that the people of Judah were killing and eating their own children.
The first crop of figs came from an early crop, considered to be the best, Jeremiah 24:2. The bad figs were considered ‘rotten’, so bad that they couldn’t be eaten, Jeremiah 24:2. God asked Jeremiah what he sees and he replies, ‘figs, the good ones are very good, but the bad ones are so bad they cannot be eaten,’ Jeremiah 24:3. This little parable is pretty much the same as that of the basket of summer fruit in Amos 8:1-3.
Constable, in his commentary, says the following.
‘In one basket there were very good figs, like the highly valued figs that matured in June, Isaiah 28:4 / Hosea 9:10, and in the other there were such bad figs that no one could eat them. In Jeremiah’s day it was not uncommon for people to bring less than the best to the Lord.’
God says that the basket of good figs represents the people who were captured and sent away into exile. The captivity in Babylon was similar to the many years that Jacob’s children spent in Egypt. They became strong as a nation in Egypt because they were kept separate from other nations. A similar thing would happen in Babylon Jeremiah 24:4-5. Away from their own country, which they missed so much, they began to see God again and they put away idols.
It is, however, sad that when they did eventually return to their homeland that they began to think of themselves first, rather than God. For instance, they were happy to build good houses for themselves, whilst the temple remained in ruins, Haggia 1-2. I guess man has never changed since God created him.
Notice that it was God who was going to do it all. God will watch over them and protect them, Jeremiah 24:6. God will guide them back to the land, Jeremiah 24:6. God will build them up, Jeremiah 24:6 / Jeremiah 1:10 / Jeremiah 12:14-17 / Jeremiah 18:7-9 / Jeremiah 31:27-28. God will plant them, Jeremiah 24:6, and God will provide for them. They will have a heart to know and follow God and they will know that He is the Lord, Jeremiah 24:7.
Green in his commentary, says the following.
‘They were the hope of true religion in the future; they had endured the shock of deportation; they had been stripped of their false securities, they were undergoing the discipline of Divine love. Some of them would respond to their suffering in a right spirit and return to God with their whole heart.’
The basket of bad figs represents the people who were captured and sent into Babylonian exile. These bad figs identify with Zedekiah, his officials, and the survivors from Jerusalem, Jeremiah 24:8. Note that even those who fled to Egypt were considered bad figs, Jeremiah 24:8.
Clarke, in his commentary, says the following.
‘They shall be carried into captivity, and scattered through all nations. Multitudes of those never returned to Judea, the others returned at the end of seventy years.’
Instead of blessing them God will make them abhorrent and an offense to all the kingdoms of the earth, a reproach and a byword, a curse, and an object of ridicule, wherever He banishes them, Jeremiah 24:9 / Deuteronomy 28:25 / Deuteronomy 28:37., God will not deliver those who are evil over to good but He will send sword, famine, and plague, Jeremiah 24:10, which refers to the third deportation when Jerusalem fell in 586 B.C. Jeremiah 52 / Lamentations 1-5.
Green, in his commentary, says the following.
‘They were the self-righteous remainder of the people in Jerusalem and Judah who had a spirit of arrogant superiority, scorn for their less fortunate countrymen in captivity, and a superstitious reliance on such sanctified shams as the inviolability of Jerusalem and the Temple, and a trust in the efficacy of empty, formalistic worship.’