JEREMIAH 24 COMMENTARYEDITED BY GLENN PEASE

Two Baskets of Figs1 After Jehoiachin[a] son of Jehoiakim king of Judah and the officials, the skilled workers and the artisans of Judah were carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Lord showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of the temple of the Lord.

BARNES, "Omit “were.” “Set before,” i. e put in the appointed place for offerings of firstfruits in the forecourt of the temple.

Carpenters - “Craftsmen” (see the marginal reference).

CLARKE, "The Lord showed me, and, behold, two baskets of figs - Besides the transposition of whole chapters in this book, there is not unfrequently a transposition of verses, and parts of verses. Of this we have an instance in the verse before us; the first clause of which should be the last. Thus: -

“After that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, with the carpenters and smiths from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon, the Lord showed me, and, behold, two baskets of figs were set before the temple of the Lord.”Jer_24:2 - “One basket had very good figs, even like the figs that are first ripe; and the other basket had very naughty figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad.”This arrangement restores these verses to a better sense, by restoring the natural connection.This prophecy was undoubtedly delivered in the first year of the reign of Zedekiah.

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Under the type of good and bad figs, God represents the state of the persons who had already been carried captives into Babylon, with their king Jeconiah, compared with the state of those who should be carried away with Zedekiah. Those already carried away, being the choice of the people, are represented by the good figs: those now remaining, and soon to be carried into captivity, are represented by the bad figs, that were good for nothing. The state also of the former in their captivity was vastly preferable to the state of those who were now about to be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon. The latter would be treated as double rebels; the former, being the most respectable of the inhabitants, were treated well; and even in captivity, a marked distinction would be made between them, God ordering it so. But the prophet sufficiently explains his own meaning.Set before the temple - As an offering of the first-fruits of that kind.Very good figs - Or, figs of the early sort. The fig-trees in Palestine, says Dr. Shaw, produce fruit thrice each year. The first sort, called boccore, those here mentioned, come to perfection about the middle or end of June. The second sort, called kermez, or summer fig, is seldom ripe before August. And the third, which is called the winter fig, which is larger, and of a darker complexion than the preceding, hangs all the winter on the tree, ripening even when the leaves are shed, and is fit for gathering in the beginning of spring.Could not be eaten - The winter fig, - then in its crude or unripe state; the spring not being yet come.

GILL, "The Lord showed me,.... A vision, or in a vision, what follows; for by this it appears that what was seen was not real, but what was exhibited in a visionary way by the Lord, and represented to the mind of the prophet: and, behold, two baskets of figs were set before the temple of the Lord; or "pots", as Jarchi; these do not signify the law and Gospel, or the synagogue and church, or the Jews and Christians, or hell and heaven, as some have interpreted it, observed by Jerom; but the Jews that were in captivity with Jeconiah, and those that remained in Jerusalem with Zedekiah, as it is explained in some following verses. These baskets are said to be "set before the temple of the Lord", not to be sold there, but to be presented to the Lord; in allusion to the baskets of firstfruits, which, according to the law, were thither brought for that purpose, Deu_26:2; and signify, that the two people represented by them were before the Lord, in his sight, were known to him, and judged by him; after that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the princes of Judah, with the carpenters and smiths, from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon: this was done when Jeconiah had reigned but little more than three months, and in the eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, 2Ki_24:8. This is mentioned, not only to show the time of this vision, which was a little after this captivity, in the beginning of Zedekiah's reign; but to let us know who the captives were, signified by the good figs. The "carpenters" and "smiths" were carried away with the king and the princes, partly that they might be serviceable to the king of Babylon in his country; and partly that they might not be assisting to their own country in repairing their fortifications, and making

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instruments of war for them. There were a "thousand" of this sort carried captive, 2Ki_24:16; where the former of these are called "craftsmen". Jarchi interprets both of the scholars of the wise men; and Kimchi, of counsellors and wise men. The word for "carpenters" is used both of carpenters and blacksmiths; and that for "smiths" may be rendered "enclosers", or "shutters up"; which the Targum understands of porters or shutters of gates; and some think goldsmiths are meant, that set or enclose precious stones in gold; and others are of opinion that masons are intended, so called from the building of walls for the enclosing of places. The Syriac version renders it "soldiers"; but those are distinguished from them, 2Ki_24:14. The Septuagint version translates it "prisoners"; but so all the captives might be called; and it adds, what is not in the text, "and the rich"; and the Arabic version following that; though it is true they were carried captive; for it is said, "none remained, save the poorest sort of the people of the land", 2Ki_24:14. This, according to Bishop Usher (x), was in the year of the world 3405, and before Christ 599; and so the authors of the Universal History (y) place it; and Mr. Whiston (z) also; and Mr. Bedford (a) a year later; and in the same year that this captivity began was Cyrus the Persian born, who was the deliverer of the Jews from it. HENRY 1-4, "This short chapter helps us to put a very comfortable construction

upon a great many long ones, by showing us that the same providence which to some is a savour of death unto death may by the grace and blessing of God be made to others a savour of life unto life; and that, though God's people share with others in the same calamity, yet it is not the same to them that it is to others, but is designed for their good and shall issue in their good; to them it is a correcting rod in the hand of a tender Father, while to others it is an avenging sword in the hand of a righteous Judge. Observe,I. The date of this sermon. It was after, a little after, Jeconiah's captivity, Jer_24:1. Jeconiah was himself a despised broken vessel, but with him were carried away some very valuable persons, Ezekiel for one (Eze_1:12); many of the princes of Judah then went into captivity, Daniel and his fellows were carried off a little before; of the people only the carpenters and the smiths were forced away, either because the Chaldeans needed some ingenious men of those trades (they had a great plenty of astrologers and stargazers, but a great scarcity of smiths and carpenters) or because the Jews would severely feel the loss of them, and would, for want of them, be unable to fortify their cities and furnish themselves with weapons of war. Now, it should seem, there were many good people carried away in that captivity, which the pious prophet laid much to heart, while there were those that triumphed in it, and insulted over those to whose lot it fell to go into captivity. Note, We must not conclude concerning the first and greatest sufferers that they were the worst and greatest sinners; for perhaps it may appear quite otherwise, as it did here.II. The vision by which this distinction of the captives was represented to the prophet's mind. He saw two baskets of figs, set before the temple, there ready to be offered as first-fruits to the honour of God. Perhaps the priests, being remiss in their duty, were not ready to receive them and dispose of them according to the law, and therefore Jeremiah sees them standing before the temple. But that which was the significancy of the vision was that the figs in one basket were extraordinarily good, those in the other basket extremely bad. The children of men are all as the fruits of the fig-tree, capable of being made serviceable to God and man (Jdg_9:11); but some are as good figs, than which nothing is more pleasant, others as damaged rotten figs, than which nothing is more nauseous. What creature viler than a wicked man, and what more valuable than a godly man! The good figs were like those that are first ripe, which are

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most acceptable (Mic_7:1) and most prized when newly come into season. The bad figs are such as could not be eaten, they were so evil; they could not answer the end of their creation, were neither pleasant nor good for food; and what then were they good for? If God has no honour from men, nor their generation any service, they are even like the bad figs, that cannot be eaten, that will not answer any good purpose. If the salt have lost its savour, it is thenceforth fit for nothing but the dunghill. Of the persons that are presented to the Lord at the door of his tabernacle, some are sincere, and they are very good; others dissemble with God, and they are very bad. Sinners are the worst of men, hypocrites the worst of sinners. Corruptio optimi est pessima - That which is best becomes, when corrupted, the worst.III. The exposition and application of this vision. God intended by it to raise the dejected spirit of those that had gone into captivity, by assuring them of a happy return, and to humble and awaken the proud and secure spirits of those who continued yet in Jerusalem, by assuring them of a miserable captivity.1. Here is the moral of the good figs, that were very good, the first ripe. These represented the pious captives, that seemed first ripe for ruin, for they went first into captivity, but should prove first ripe for mercy, and their captivity should help to ripen them; these are pleasing to God, as good figs are to us, and shall be carefully preserved for use. Now observe here,(1.) Those that were already carried into captivity were the good figs that God would own. This shows, [1.] That we cannot determine of God's love or hatred by all that is before us. When God's judgments are abroad those are not always the worst that are first seized by them. [2.] That early suffering sometimes proves for the best to us. The sooner the child is corrected the better effect the correction is likely to have. Those that went first into captivity were as the son whom the father loves, and chastens betimes,chastens while there is hope; and it did well. But those that staid behind were like a child long left to himself, who, when afterwards corrected, is stubborn, and made worse by it, Lam_3:27.JAMISON, "Jer_24:1-10. The restoration of the captives in Babylon and the

destruction of the refractory party in Judea and in Egypt, represented under the type of a basket of good, and one of bad, figs.Lord showed me — Amo_7:1, Amo_7:4, Amo_7:7; Amo_8:1, contains the same formula, with the addition of “thus” prefixed.carried ... captive Jeconiah — (Jer_22:24; 2Ki_24:12, etc.; 2Ch_36:10).carpenters, etc. — One thousand artisans were carried to Babylon, both to work for the king there, and to deprive Jerusalem of their services in the event of a future siege (2Ki_24:16).

K&D, "The Two Fig Baskets-an emblem of the future of Judah's people. - Jer_24:1. "Jahveh caused me to see, and behold two baskets of figs set before the temple of Jahveh, after Nebuchadrezzar had carried captive Jechoniah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the princes of Judah, and the work-people and the smiths from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon. Jer_24:2. One basket had very good figs like the early figs, the other basket very bad figs, which could not be eaten for badness. Jer_24:3. And Jahveh said to me: What seest thou, Jeremiah? and I said: Figs; the

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good figs are very good, and the bad figs very bad, which cannot be eaten for badness. Jer_24:4. Then came the word of Jahveh unto me, saying: Jer_24:5. Thus saith Jahveh, the God of Israel: Like these good figs, so will I look on the captives of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans, for good; Jer_24:6. And I will set mine eye upon them for good, and will bring them back again to this land, and build them and not pull down, and plant them and not pluck up. Jer_24:7. And I give them an heart to know me, that I am Jahveh; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God; for they will return unto me with their whole heart. Jer_24:8. And as the bad figs, which cannot be eaten for badness, yea thus saith Jahveh, so will I make Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes and the residue of Jerusalem, them that are left remaining in this land and them that dwell in Egypt. Jer_24:9. I give them up for ill-usage, for trouble to all kingdoms of the earth, for a reproach and a by-word, for a taunt and for a curse in all the places whither I shall drive them. Jer_24:10. and I send among them the sword, the famine, and the plague, till they be consumed from off the land that I gave to them and to their fathers."This vision resembles in form and substance that in Amo_8:1-3. The words: Jahveh caused me to see, point to an inward event, a seeing with the eyes of the spirit, not of the body. The time is, Jer_24:1, precisely given: after Nebuchadnezzar had carried to Babylon King Jechoniah, with the princes and a part of the people; apparently soon after this deportation, at the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah, the king set up by Nebuchadnezzar over Judah. Cf. 2Ki_24:14-17. - The Lord caused the prophet to see in

spirit two baskets of figs (ּדּוָדִאים, from ּדּוַדי, equivalent to ּדּוד, Jer_24:2), מּוֲעִדים(from ָיַעד) in the place appointed therefor (ֵעד before the temple. We are (rofereh )מnot to regard these figs as an offering brought to Jahveh (Graf); and so neither are we to think here of the place where first-fruits or tithes were offered to the Lord, Exo_23:19., Deu_26:2. The two baskets of figs have nothing to do with first-fruits. They symbolize the people, those who appear before the Lord their God, namely, before the altar of burnt-offering; where the Lord desired to appear to, to meet with His people (ַעד _Exo ,נ29:42.), so as to sanctify it by His glory, Exo_29:43. מּוֲעִדים therefore means: placed in the spot appointed by the Lord for His meeting with Israel.BI, "The princes of Judah, with the carpenters and smiths from Jerusalem.The nobility of workI. All labour becomes truly noble regarded as the service of God. To regard labour simply as a stern necessity of human life is to convert the workman into a slave, and his toil into drudgery. The glory of the angels is found in the fact they are messengers of God. And all the work of our hand attains its highest glory wrought out in the love and fear of God. The apostle gives us the true point of view (Eph_6:6-8). Here we have God the Taskmaster. “Doing the will of God.” Not only what we are pleased to call our highest work for Him, but our lowliest toil also, serving Him with two brown hands as Gabriel serves in the presence of the throne with two white wings. Here we have also God the Paymaster. “Whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord.” God is a grand paymaster, He is a sure one, and rich beyond all hope are they who do His bidding. In the class-meeting a poor man said to me, “It was very strange, sir, but the other day, whilst I was looking after my horses, God visited me and wonderfully blessed me; it was very strange He should visit me like this in a stable.” “Not at all,” said

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I, “it is a fulfilment of the prophecy: ‘In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses Holiness unto the Lord,’” &c. In an old book I was reading the other day the writer laughed at some commoner who had just been made a peer, because he had his coat of arms burned and painted even upon his shovels and wheelbarrows. In my reckoning, that was a very fine action, and full of significance. If a man is a true man he is a man of God, a prince of God; and he ought to pat the stamp of his nobility on the commonest things with which he has to do.II. All labour becomes truly noble regarded as a ministry to humanity. Few men, comparatively, realise the social bearing of their toil, and therefore know it as an insipid thing, when in truth it is their rich privilege to taste in all their work the joy of a good Samaritan, for all conscientious work is an essential philanthropy. With one hand we work for ourselves, with the other for the race, and it is one of the purest joys of life to remember this. Let us be blind workers no more, but consciously, lovingly, do our daily work, rejoicing in the social glory and fruitfulness of it. Princes, smiths, carpenters, let us not forget we too toil for the larger happiness of all men, so shall we prove in our toil some of the sublime pleasure Howard knew when he opened the door of the prison, that Wilberforce felt striking off the fetters of the slave, that Peabody tasted when he built homes for the poor.III. All labour becomes truly noble regarded as a discipline to our higher nature. Many, alas! sink with their work, but the Divine design in the duty of life was the perfection of the worker. Our toil is to develop our whole nature. Our physical being. Our work is neither to pollute nor destroy, but to purify and build up the temple of the body. Sweat does not mean blood, and there is a blessing in the curse. Our work should develop our intellectual self also. Much of our business may become a direct mental education, and it need never hinder the flowering of the mind. But chiefly the work of life ought to subserve our spiritual perfecting. In all true work the soul works and gains in purity and power by its work. The carpenter’s work tests his moral qualities, and Whilst he builds with brick and stone, timber and glass, he may build up also character with silver, gold, and precious stones; the smith fashions his soul whilst he shapes the iron on ringing anvil; the husbandman may enrich his heart whilst he adorns the landscape; and the weaver at the loom weave two fabrics at once, one that the moth shall fret, the other of gold and fine needlework, immortal raiment for the spirit. The King of glory has consecrated the workshop by His presence and glorified work by His example. (W. L. Watkinson.)

CALVIN, "The meaning of this vision is, that there was no reason for the ungodly to flatter themselves if they continued in their wickedness, though God did bear with them for a time. The King Jeconiah had been then carried away into exile, together with the chief men and artisans. The condition of the king and of the rest appeared indeed much worse than that of the people who remained in the country, for they still retained a hope that the royal dignity would again be restored, and that the city would flourish again and enjoy abundance of every blessing, though it was then nearly emptied; for everything precious had become a prey to the conqueror; and we indeed know how great was the avarice and rapacity of Nebuchadnezzar. The city then was at that time almost empty, and desolate in comparison with its former splendor. They however who remained might indeed have hoped for a better state of

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things, but those who had gone into exile were become like dead bodies. Hence miserable Jeconiah, who was banished and deprived of his kingdom, was apparently undergoing a most grievous punishment, together with his companions, who had been led away with him; and the Jews who remained at Jerusalem no doubt flattered themselves, as though God had dealt more kindly with them. Had they really repented, they would indeed have given thanks to God for having spared them; but as they had abused his forbearance, it was necessary to set before them what this chapter contains, even that they foolishly reasoned when they concluded, that God had been more propitious to them than to the rest.But this is shewn by a vision: the Prophet saw two baskets or flaskets; and he saw them full of figs, and that before the temple of God; but the figs in one were sweet and savory; and the figs in the other were bitter, so that they could not be eaten. By the sweet figs God intended to represent Jeconiah and the other exiles, who had left their country: and he compares them to the ripe figs; for ripe figs have a sweet taste, while the other figs are rejected on account of their bitterness. In like manner, Jeconiah and the rest had as it were been consumed; but there were figs still remaining; and he says that the lot of those was better whom God had in due time punished, than of the others who remained, as they were accumulating a heavier judgment by their obstinacy. For since the time that Nebuchadnezzar had spoiled the city and had taken from it everything valuable, those who remained had not ceased to add sins to sins, so that there was a larger portion of divine vengeance ready to fall on them.We now see the design of this vision. And he says that the vision was presented to him by God; and to say this was very necessary, that his doctrine might have more weight with the people. God, indeed, often spoke without a vision; but we have elsewhere stated what was the design of a vision; it was a sort of seal to what was delivered; for in order that the Prophet might possess greater authority, they not only spoke, but as it were sealed their doctrine, as though God had graven on it, as it were by his finger, a certain mark. But as this subject has been elsewhere largely handled, I shall now pass it by.Behold, he says, two baskets of figs set before the temple. (123) The place ought to be noticed. It may have been that the Prophet was not allowed to move a step from his own house; and the vision may have been presented to him in the night, during thick darkness: but the temple being mentioned, shews that a part of the people had not been taken away without cause, and the other part left in the city; for it had proceeded from God himself. For in the temple God manifested himself; and therefore the prophets, when they wished to storm the hearts of the ungodly, often said,“Go forth shall God from his temple.” (Isaiah 26:21; Micah 1:3.)The temple then is to be taken here for the tribunal of God. Hence, he says, that these two baskets were set in the temple; as though he said, that the whole people

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stood at God’s tribunal, and that those who had been already cast into exile had not been carried away at the will of their enemies, but because God designed to punish them.The time also is mentioned, After Yeconiah the son of Jehohoiakim had been carried away; for had not this been added, the vision would have been obscure, and no one at this day could understand why God had set two baskets in the presence of Jeremiah. A distinction then is made here between the exiles and those who dwelt in their own country; and at the same time they were reduced to great poverty, and the city was deprived of its splendor; there was hardly any magnificence in the Temple, the royal palace was spoiled, and the race of David only reigned by permission. But though the calamity of the city and people was grievous, yet, as it has been said, the Jews who remained in the city thought themselves in a manner happy in comparison with their brethren, who were become as it were dead; for God had ejected the king, and he was treated disdainfully as a captive, and the condition of the others was still worse. This difference then between the captives and those who remained in the land is what is here represented. COFFMAN, "Verse 1JEREMIAH 24TWO BASKETS OF FIGSThe approximate date of this vision is shortly after the deportation of Jeconiah and the nobles and craftsmen to Babylon following the first capture of Jerusalem by Babylon in 597 B.C.Keil considered the vision recounted here as symbolical of "the future of Judah's people."[1] Jamieson stated the purpose of the chapter a little more fully. "This chapter was designed to encourage the despairing exiles, and to reprove the people left in Jerusalem, who prided themselves as superior and more highly favored than the exiles."[2] The ones remaining in Judah had appropriated all of the possessions left behind by the exiles; and they were no doubt congratulating themselves on how lucky they were. The approximate date of this vision is shortly after the deportation of This little parable of the two baskets of figs was designed to show them how wrong they were.Jeremiah 24:1-3"Jehovah showed me, and, behold, two baskets of figs set before the temple of Jehovah, after that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiachim, king of Judah, and the princes of Judah, and the craftsmen and smiths from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon. One basket had very good figs, like figs that are first-ripe; and the other basket had very bad figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad. Then said Jehovah unto me,

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What seest thou, Jeremiah? And I said, Figs; the good figs very good; and the bad, very bad, that cannot be eaten, they are so bad.""Baskets of figs set before the temple ..." (Jeremiah 24:1) The great lesson here, which is missed by many of the commentators, has nothing whatever to do with "first-fruits"[3] The lesson that thunders from the parable is that "proximity to the temple" is no sign whatever of the holiness or acceptability of the people living in the vicinity of the Jewish temple. The people in Jerusalem were close to the temple, all right, but they were not close to God! They were exactly like that basket of rotten figs on the very steps of the temple."The king ... the princes ... the craftsmen and smiths ..." (Jeremiah 24:1). The cream of the nation had already been deported. All of the skilled artisans and craftsmen and presumably all of the people with special skills. The meaning of "smiths" is uncertain; but the general import of the verse is plain enough. Both Ezekiel and Daniel were also in that first group of captives. See 2 Kings 24:10-17 of the Biblical record of who went to Babylon. The teaching of the parable is that the people left in Judah were inferior to the captives who went to Babylon. Barnes stated that, "Those left behind were not worth taking."[4]This estimate proved to be correct. Zedekiah surrounded himself with a group of citizens who persuaded him to form an alliance with Egypt and to resist any further submission to Babylon. That policy, of course, brought on the second siege of Jerusalem, the murder of the vast majority of the population, the destruction of the temple, and the reduction of the whole city to a ruin. In the long ran, the ones remaining in Judah would have by far the worst fate. The one and one half year siege they endured was one of the worst in history, the inhabitants even being reduced to cannibalism."The good figs ... the bad figs ..." (Jeremiah 24:2-3) It seems that so simple a vision should not need much comment; but commentators always find something to write about. We are told that the good figs came from the early crop of a variety that produced two or three crops a year, the first one being far superior to the other two. The bad figs were described as "rotten" by Harrison, and probably the "sycamore fig" by Smith. That variety needed to be pricked during the ripening process; and the failure to provide that treatment made the figs inedible!This little parable is very much like that of the basket of summer fruit in Amos 8:1-3. We refer the reader to our exegesis of that parable in Vol. 1 of the Minor Prophets Series.ELLICOTT, " (1) The Lord shewed me . . .—The chapter belongs to the same period as the two preceding, i.e., to the reign of Zedekiah, after the first capture of Jerusalem and the captivity of the chief inhabitants. The opening words indicate that the symbols on which the prophet looked were seen in vision, as in Amos 7:1-4; Amos 7:7; Zechariah 1:8; Zechariah 2:1, and the symbols of Jeremiah 1:11;

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Jeremiah 1:13; or, if seen with the eyes of the body, were looked on as with the prophet-poet’s power of finding parables in all things. The fact that the figs were set before the Temple of the Lord is significant. They were as a votive offering, first-fruits (Exodus 23:19; Deuteronomy 26:2) or tithes brought to the Lord of Israel. A like imagery had been used by Amos (Amos 8:1-2) with nearly the same formulæ.The carpenters and smiths.—See 2 Kings 24:14. The word for “carpenters” includes craftsmen of all kinds. The deportation of these classes was partly a matter of policy, making the city more helpless by removing those who might have forged weapons or strengthened its defences, partly, doubtless, of ostentation, that they might help in the construction of the buildings with which Nebuchadnezzar was increasing the splendour of his city. So Esar-haddon records how he made his captives “work in fetters, in making bricks” Records of the Past, iii. p. 120). So, from the former point of view, the Philistines in the time of Samuel either carried off the smiths of Israel or forbade the exercise of their calling (1 Samuel 13:19). The word for “smith” is found in Isaiah 24:22; Isaiah 42:7 in the sense of “prison,” but, as applied to persons, only here and in the parallel passage of 2 Kings 24:14; 2 Kings 24:16. It has been differently interpreted as meaning “locksmiths,” “gatekeepers,” “strangers,” “hod-carriers,” and “day-labourers.” Probably the rendering of the E.V. is right.TRAPP, "Jeremiah 24:1 The LORD shewed me, and, behold, two baskets of figs [were] set before the temple of the LORD, after that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, and the princes of Judah, with the carpenters and smiths, from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon.Ver. 1. The Lord showed me.] By showing as well as by saying, hath God ever signified his mind to his people; by the visible as well as by the audible word, as in sacrifices and sacraments, for their better confirmation in the faith.And, behold, two baskets.] Dodaim, so called from dodim, breasts, because these two baskets resembled two breasts.Were set before the temple.] Either visionally, or else actually there set; whether presented for firstfruits, {as Deuteronomy 26:2} or set to be sold in such a public place.Before the temple.] To show that the Jews of both sorts gloried in the same God, but were differently regarded by him, and accordingly sentenced.After that Nebuchadnezzar.] This then was showed to Jeremiah about the beginning of Zedekiah’s reign.Had carried away captive Jeconiah.] Who was therefore and thenceforth called Jeconiah Asir, [1 Chronicles 3:16] that is, Jeconiah the Prisoner. He was a wicked prince, and therefore written childless, and threatened with deportation. [Jeremiah

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22:30] Howbeit, because by the advice of the prophet Jeremiah he submitted to Nebuchadnezzar (who carried him away to Babylon, where, say the Rabbis, he repented, and was therefore at length advanced by Evilmerodah, as Jeremiah 52:31), he and his company are here comforted, and pronounced more happy, however it might seem otherwise, than those that continued still in the land; and this, say the Hebrews, (a) was not obscurely set forth also by those two baskets of figs, whereof that which was worst showed best, and the other showed worst, till they came to be tasted.With the carpenters,] Or, Craftsmen. [2 Kings 24:14; 2 Kings 24:16]And smiths.] Heb., Enclosers - that is, say some, goldsmiths, whose work it is to set stones in gold; and these, thus carried away, are as a type of such, saith Oecolampadius, as are penitent and patient till the Lord shall turn again their captivity as the streams in the south. COKE, "Jeremiah 24:1. The Lord shewed me— This vision happened after the carrying away of Jeconiah, and under the reign of Zedekiah, the last king of Judah. The prophet himself sufficiently explains the meaning of the vision, in which two such baskets of figs were presented to his view as used to be offered up for first-fruits at the temple. The good figs signified those who were already gone into captivity; and the bad figs those who remained and were exposed to the second famine and pestilence. PARKER, " Figs Good and BadJeremiah 24There was an immense advantage in living in Old Testament times. The evidence of that advantage is to be found on every page of the Old Testament itself. Men had a living Lord then. They spoke with him in a very reverent familiarity; although they named his name every day, never does the familiarity go below the point of reverence. You could not speak to an Old Testament man without hearing something about "The Lord"; for he said, with a child"s frankness, The Lord said; The Lord told me; I saw the Lord; The Lord sent me; The Lord afflicted me; The Lord gave me deliverance; The Lord healed my diseases, and loaded me with benefits. There was nothing strained about the confession: it was simply, sweetly, gratefully uttered. Where is that Lord today? He was a great Lord; it required the Hebrew tongue to furnish epithets and descriptives by which he could be adequately set forth to the imagination. Is it language we are short of? or is the Lord God himself absent from our thinking? Is it possible to think much about him, and never mention his name? Is it possible to perform the miracle of being so absorbed in the claims of God as never to mention the King? Has it come to this crowning miracle, the devil the miracle-worker, that men can love Christ, and never acknowledge him? We are not insensible to the plea that we must beware of what is denominated for no known reason "cant." But love surely is inventive enough to find ways of self-

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expression and self-revelation; surely love must now and then have courage enough to test a popular fear, and to lift itself up in noble testimony, notwithstanding those who would affright it into silence. We now have theories, hypotheses even—things so useless as hypotheses! we have laws, persistent forces, marvellous, all-grinding continuity: would God we had the living Father, the gentle, benignant, merciful, redeeming Saviour! It was better to be an old prophet, who even dreamed himself into this sublime association with motive, thought, and destiny eternal, than to be crammed, filled with notions we cannot understand, and theories we never think of applying."What seest thou, Jeremiah?" "Two baskets of figs set before the temple." What is the meaning of these baskets? We cannot tell. Perhaps they were votive offerings. The people who set them there had some object in view. The same baskets are standing in the same place today. Did the Lord see only the baskets of figs? When does the Lord put a final meaning to anything? There is no final meaning to the humblest bird that flutters in the air; it is a minister of Providence, a minister of grace. There is no end to the meaning of a field of wild flowers. We can run past that marvellous display of power, Wisdom of Solomon , and goodness; but God himself is still there, nourishing every root, and filling every cup as with the wine of beauty. Things mean more than they seem to mean: it is the interpreter that is wanting. It is even so with the Bible. We do not want a new writing, we want a new reading; we do not want a new Bible, we simply need the old one to be properly read. The Bible is in the reader: you get out of the Bible what you bring to it. So it is with everything. If this were a philosophical law relating to the Bible only, we might question it because of its uniqueness and singularity, but this law holds good everywhere. We get what we give: our prayers are their answers; no man can pray above the answer he has already in his heart Why do we not see? To look is one thing; to see is another. We have not the same drapery that we find in Oriental narrative or parable, but that is an advantage rather than a disadvantage, because poor readers, superficial observers, never get further than the drapery. They never see the prodigal son; if they saw him they would fall upon his neck before he left his father"s house, and would have the battle out then. The drapery conceals, not reveals, unless we have the living, penetrating eye that pierces through all clothing and accident, and fixes itself intelligibly and critically upon the core, the meaning that roots in the heart. There are many who have seen nothing but clouds in the sky: there are some who have never seen the sky. There are some who have never seen their own children. There are blind hearts, blind understandings, that never see anything as it Isaiah , in all its outgoing of suggestion, poetry, apocalypse, possibility: what wonder that they have become the victims of monotony and complain cf commonplace and weariness and tedium, and are always sighing for something that will simply startle them out of the degradation into which they have brought every faculty?What is the abiding quantity? Remove the drapery, with all its amplitude and colouring, and get at the heart of things, and what is the permanent quantity, which the world might hold as stock to trade with? What is it which around this simple

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fellowship gathers in order that it may wisely calculate, expend, record its accounts, and divide its balances? The central quantity is History,—events, actions, providence. The baskets are not here, the particular literal figs are not here, but all the meaning is present with us through enduring time. History must be read, events must be looked at; for now the world has grown a history; the world has grown a library. Jeremiah had none, Isaiah and Ezekiel had to look around at nature, and endeavour through nature to look telescopically upon infinite distances; in their day there was nothing of what we call with modern significance a literature, a history. Now God is taking shape in events, is robed with incidents, deliverances, interpositions—all the marvellous garment which we denominate by the name of Providence. We see only the detail, and therefore we are lost, and sometimes we are almost atheists. If we would see anything like an outline of the sum-total, we must pray, and fear, and trust, and love. We have a mischievous habit of breaking up our lives into little morsels, and looking only at the disintegration; we have not yet: learned the mystery of putting things together into all their meaning, and getting into the rhythm of the divine movement: otherwise there would be no atheists, there would be fewer agnostics, there would be a marvellous multiplication of worshippers; men would be brought to say, Explain it how you will, there are invisible fingers at work in all this machinery of things: history is an argument, history is a theology, history is a Bible: of another kind, yet rooted in the old Bible as to all its philosophies, possibilities, reverences, and divinest outlook and outcome. Thus through the vestibule of history men can walk arm-inarm a thousand strong, saying, Let us enter into the Temple, for it is the hour of prayer, and bless the God of history for the other Temple which he is building, and by which he is vindicating his throne and his providence. If men would read history, Christianity would be safe. If men would read their own history, there would be less need of argument. Some of us have come to a point at which we have perfect rest in God. There may be those who need to have an elaborate and irrational and unintelligible argument by which to prove the existence of God; but no man who has lived a reflective life can look back upon his yesterdays without saying, They came as links, but they have been welded or attached or connected into chains; each day came, it was taken up, looked at, used, laid down; but the days are now a thousand in number, multiplied by ten, and by fifty, and lo! they are not links but chains, golden, strong, and by a mysterious process they uplift themselves, and are hooked on to something stronger than rocks, something brighter than planets.Who then can wonder at the young being eccentric, having a tendency to intellectual vagary and vagabondage—who can wonder? A man cannot read other people"s history until he has read his own; we cannot understand biography until we understand autobiography. We hear the words: the eloquent lecturer expounds the ways historical, the mysteries of course and consequence, and we listen as students wonderingly—our principal wonder being why he ever began: but as we advance in life we see that there is an under-current, an under-building, an outer structure, and when we compare the outer with the inner, the material with the spiritual, history with the Bible, we say, All things are one; there is at the heart of all life"s wondrous mystery a Power, inspiring, guiding, shaping, refining, spiritualising,—call it by

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what name you may, at last you will come to call it by the name divine. Why do men not read events? If they would read events they would be believers in providence.Events are divided. "What seest thou?" I see two kinds of events, one good, and the other vile: and there they are in life. It is so in families: how do you account for it that one son prays, and the other never saw the need of prayer? The one is filial; the other has a heart of stone. The one is always at home; the other never was at home in all his life—the meaning of that term in music he never understood. Look at life broadly. What seest thou, O prophet, O man of the piercing eyes, what seest thou? Two events, or series of events, one excellent, the other vile; one leading upward, the other downward. What seest thou? Heaven—hell. The vision is still before us; we need to have our attention called to it. He who deals in singularities, in isolations, never enters into the philosophy of providence, the method of the sublime organisation which is denominated the universe. We have perhaps been unjust to the idea of individualism. A man says he can read the Bible at home. We have denied this. He can read it there if he has no other opportunity of reading it; but let him come into the great fellowship, and he will find another reading, in another tone, and he will feel that he needed that marvellous, inexplicable thing called touch, sympathy, fellowship, in order to make him see himself, in the real quality and quantity of his being. We must have public prayer. We can pray alone and must pray there; but we can only pray there with sufficient profitableness for the holy exercise in proportion as we crowd our solitude with memories of the great congregation. How difficult it is for any man to see the intercessor in another man! When we listen to prayer in the public congregation we are not listening to one Prayer of Manasseh , we are not listening to a man confessing his own sins, we are not reduced to that contemptible relation to the universe; if the man who is praying be an intercessor, one to whom is given the gift of public expression, we hear in his voice a thousand voices—when he sobs it is because a thousand hearts have broken, when he cries for mercy it is because the world is on its knees. So with events, processes of events, marvellous action and interaction: we must see the whole if we would really say, How awful is this place! this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.In Old Testament times the Lord communicated his will to special men. Here we have Jeremiah as representing that whole thought. This would be peculiar, and would be open to a species of objection, if it did not hold good in all the relations of life. Here again we come upon the marvellous distribution of the figs, excellent and vile, full of noble meaning, and full of distressing suggestion. Jeremiah was called to interpret the symbols. Men are called today who have the faculty of interpretation. They do not speak from the point of information, else then they would be but articulate newspapers; they speak from the point of inspiration, consciousness, communion with the Eternal; therefore there is about their words an aroma not to be found otherwhere. One man is a poet, and another—not to put it offensively—is not a poet: how is that? One man weeps when he sees the morning come: the dawn is so tender, so condescending, so hospitable, so full of promise, and so full of that which cannot at once be apprehended: what is that dawn? Is it an opening

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battlefield? is it a sick-bed? is it a bright opportunity for doing noble things? The poet cannot tell, but he says, God will be in the centre of it, and if he will reveal himself the day shall be a blessing, though it be full of battle, or though it be quiet with the spirit of peace. One man is a statesman, and another is not; one man can see the whole question, and the other can hardly see any part of it. The man who can only see one point gets credit for being very definite. Poor soul! he gets a reputation for being very clear. If he could see a horizon instead of a point, he would hesitate, he would look about for another and larger selection of words; he would be critical, he would pause between two competitive terms, not knowing which exactly held all the colour of his thought. Some heads are vacant temples. What then? Let us be thankful to God for the Isaiahs, Jeremiahs, Ezekiels, Pauls, and Johns, who have risen to tell us what the Lord meant. Who was it that saw the Lord first on that marvellous morning referred to in the fourth Gospel? It was John. There was a figure on the seashore, a mere outline, a spectre; the people in the boat wondered what it was, and John said, "It is the Lord." It required John to turn that figure into a Christ: but this is the faculty divine, this is the prophetic function, this is the inworking of that mystery which we call inspiration. It required God to see his own image and likeness in the dust; it required Christ in the very agony of his love to turn common supper wine into sacramental blood. Let us be thankful tor our teachers. Some of us are but echoes—we can only tell what we have heard other men say: but let us maintain our friends who have the gift of prayer; if we cannot join them we can listen to them, and say, Hear how he knows us, how he loves us, how he interprets our desires, how by some gift we: cannot understand he puts into words the very thoughts that have been burning in our hearts. These are the men who should lead the civilisation of the world.The Lord says he will send his people into captivity "for their good,"—"Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel; Like these: good figs, so will I acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good." How marvellous is the action of love! The parent sends away the child he cannot live without for the child"s good; men undertake long and perilous and costly journeys that they may accomplish a purpose that is good. Jesus Christ himself said to his wondering disciples, "It is expedient for you that I go away." Who can understand this action of love? It would seem to us to be otherwise: that it would be best for Jesus to remain until the very last wanderer is home; it would seem to our poor reason, which has everything but wings, that it would be best for Jesus Christ to remain upon the earth until he saw the very last little lamb enfolded on the mountains of Israel—then he himself could come to be shepherd of the flock. Yet he was hardly here before he said, "It is expedient for you that I go away." Are we not sent away? have we not lost fortune, station, standing? have we not been punished in a thousand different ways—chastised, humiliated, afflicted? have we not been suddenly surrounded with clouds in which there was no light—yea, and clouds in which there was no rain, simply darkness, sevenfold night? Yet it was for our good; it was that our vanity might be rebuked, that the centre of dependence might be found, that the throne of righteousness might be seen and approached. "It was good for me that I was afflicted: before I was afflicted I went

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astray." Let us look upon our afflictions, distresses, and losses in that light. Life is not easy; life is a sacrifice, an agony, a battle that ends only to begin again, a fight mitigated, not ended, by a night"s repose. Are we to live always the accidental life, the life of mere detail, the life that only happens? or are we to live the life that is governed by law, inspired by a purpose, riveted in God, and travelling through infinite circuits back again to the fountain of its origin? This is the religious life.What became of the evil figs? The Lord himself could not cure them. The only mercy that could be shown to them was to destroy them. How is it with ourselves? There would seem to be men who cannot be cured, healed, restored; God himself has wasted his omnipotence upon them. There are men who have resisted the Cross, who have gone to perdition over a place called Calvary. Did they see it on the road? Yes. Did they know who died upon that central cross? Yes. Did they hear his voice of love? Yes, outwardly. How have they come to perdition? By pressing their way past the Father, the Song of Solomon , and the Holy Ghost; if you go back all the miles they have travelled you will find that they crushed under their feet father, mother, home, pastor, friend, companion, wife, child, Bible, altar: what can become of them? God himself can do no more. He is at the gate of the vineyard now, saying, as he looks upon the wild grapes, What could I do for my vineyard more than I have done? Be just, be honest, and say in clear, articulate terms that your soul can hear, I am self-ruined, I am a suicide.But who can end here? who can turn aside and say, This is the end? May it not be that one more appeal will succeed? may not God himself be surprised by the returning prodigal? may not Omniscience be startled into a new consciousness? We are obliged to use these terms with human meanings: but may it not be that some who are thought to be lost are not lost after all? To be in God"s house is a proof that the loss is not complete. To have even intellectual attention bestowed upon an appeal is to show that life is not extinct. "Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die?" "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked." If any man dies it will be because God cannot help it.PETT, "Verses 1-10The Two Baskets of Figs - Zedekiah And Jerusalem Are Fated To Destruction And Exile (Jeremiah 24:1-10).The subsection opened with a report concerning the future of Zedekiah and Jerusalem, and it now closes with the same, the two forming an inclusio for the subsection. Jeremiah is shown two baskets of figs by YHWH, one containing good figs and the other bad figs. The good figs represent the cream of the people who had been carried off to Babylon (including Daniel and Ezekiel among others). The bad figs represent Zedekiah and those who had remained behind in Jerusalem. The good figs would one day be restored to the land and built up there, and would once again become His people with Him being their God. But the bad figs would be gathered up by Nebuchadrezzar and scattered among the kingdoms to become a reproach

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wherever they were found, and prior to that would first suffer sword, famine and pestilence. In other words for Zedekiah and his ilk there was to be no future.Jeremiah 24:1‘YHWH showed me, and, behold, two baskets of figs set before the temple of YHWH, after Nebuchadrezzar 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.’The chapter commences with YHWH showing Jeremiah two baskets of figs which had been set before the Temple of YHWH, indicating either that they were being brought before YHWH for Him to pass judgment on them, or that they were an offering to YHWH, either as a firstfruit or a tithe (a remnant). Compare Amos 8:1-2. This took place after Nebuchadrezzar had carried Jehoiachin, together with the princes of Judah (the tribal and clan leaders) and the cream of the people away to Babylon (2 Kings 24:10-17).The inclusion of craftsmen of all kinds was an indication that these exiles were more than hostages. Nebuchadrezzar was stripping Jerusalem of all who could have contributed to its being built up again into a strong city, and at the same time assuring himself of a constant stream of craftsmen for his own building projects. Many would in fact settle in Babylon and not want to return.PULPIT, "Verses 1-10EXPOSITIONAgain Jeremiah's ungrateful task is to take up an attitude of direct opposition to the king (comp. Jeremiah 22:13-30), though, indeed, Zedekiah personally is so weak and dependent on others that he neither deserves nor receives a special rebuke. He and all the people that are left are likened to very bad figs, the good figs—the exiles—having been picked out and sent to Babylon, whence they will one day be restored. The vision is purely an interior process. This is indicated, not only by the phrase, "Jehovah showed me" (comp. Amos 7:1, Amos 7:4, Amos 7:7; Amos 8:1), but by the contents of the vision.Jeremiah 24:1Two baskets of figs were set before, etc. (comp. Amos 8:1-3). The description is apparently based on the law of firstfruits (comp. Deuteronomy 26:2), where the "basket" is mentioned, though not the word here used. The baskets were set down in readiness to be examined by the priests, who rigorously rejected all fruit that was not sound. The princes of Judah. A short phrase for all the leading men, whether members of the royal family or heads of the principal families (comp. Jeremiah 27:20). The carpenters and smiths; rather, the craftsmen and smiths ("craftsmen"

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includes workers in stone and metal as well as wood; the Hebrew word is rendered "smith" in 1 Samuel 13:19).PULPIT, "Two baskets of figs.I. MORALLY MEN ARE DIVISIBLE INTO TWO DISTINCT CLASSES. The two baskets of figs represent two classes of Jews: the basket of good figs, Jeconiah and his followers; the basket of bad figs, Zedekiah and his party. The great distinction between these was moral. There were princes in both classes; yet the one stood far higher in the sight of God than the other.1. The deepest line of cleavage which runs down through all sections of mankind is moral; all other separating marks are more superficial.2. There are in the main but two classes—the good and the bad—though, of course, within each of these great varieties occur.3. Both of these classes tend to grow extreme. The good figs are very good, the bad are very bad. Character is tendency. As character develops it moves further on along the lines on which it is founded. Good men incline to grow better and bad men worse. Like the rivers which flow down the two sides of a great watercourse, lives that begin in similar circumstances and are near together for a season, if they once diverge, are likely to separate more widely as the years pass.II. THE REST MEN MAY BE THE GREATEST SUFFERERS. The good figs represent the Jews who suffered most severely from the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar, who were torn from their homes, robbed of their property, driven into captivity; the bad figs represent the seemingly more fortunate Jews over whose head the tide of invasion passes, leaving them still in their homes and in quiet, and also those who escaped from it entirely by a flight into Egypt. We may often notice that very good people are not only not spared, but suffer the most severe calamities. The sinless One was a "man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." No greater mistake can be made than that of the three friends of Job. Great misfortunes are certainly not indications of great guilt; often of the reverse.1. High character may directly invoke trouble. It rouses the opposition of the wicked; it feels called to dangerous tasks and to a mission which excites enmity; it maintains a fidelity that excludes many avenues of escape which would be open to men of lower moral principles.2. God may bless and honor his better children by sending to them the severer trials. Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth. Therefore chastisement is an evidence of God's love. Good men should understand this, and not be surprised at the advent of trouble, but expect it; not be dismayed at the incongruity of it, but recognize its fitness; not despair of themselves, and think that they must be hypocrites after all, nor doubt and distrust God, but submit to what is clearly foretold and wisely

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arranged.III. GOD LOOKS FAVORABLY ON THOSE WHO SUBMIT TO HIS CHASTISEMENTS. The good figs represent those Jews who obey the message of Jeremiah and submit to the invasion of the Chaldeans as to a Divine chastisement; the bad figs stand for those Jews who resist. It requires faith to recognize the wisdom and duty of submission. On the face of it such conduct would appear unpatriotic and cowardly, while resistance would seem noble and brave. It may take more courage, however, to submit than to resist. There is a yielding which is calm and reasonable and really brave, since it involves the curbing of instinctive combativeness and the pursuit of an unpopular course-one sure to be misunderstood and to provoke calumny. The sole guide must be sought in the question of what is right, what is God's will. We are not called to a fatalistic passiveness. There are circumstances in which self-defense or flight may be evidently right. What we are to submit to is not all opposition, all possible trouble, but God's will, the trouble which we know he has sanctioned. All the good fruit of chastisement will be lost if we rebel against it. No greater proof of faith in the goodness of God and loyalty to the majesty of God can be found than a quiet, unmurmuring acceptance of his harder requirements.IV. THE HARDEST SUFFERING MAY LEAD TO THE HAPPIEST RESULTS. The captives are to be restored. Those Jews who remain in the land are ultimately to be driven forth as "a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse." The short, sharp suffering will end in ultimate good. The temporary escape will be followed by final ruin.1. God's chastisements are temporary; they will give place to lasting blessedness. The present affliction is light just because it endures "but for a moment" (2 Corinthians 4:17). Even if they outlast the present life, what is this brief span of earthly trial compared with the blessedness of an eternity?2. God's chastisements work our good. They directly tend to produce the happier future. The tearful sowing is the cause of the joyful harvest. The spiritual improvement wrought in the soul by the discipline of sorrow is at once a source of future blessedness and a justification for it. "It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth."3. A culpable avoidance of Divine chastisement is highly dangerous. The escape from temporary trouble must incur greater future trouble; for

2 One basket had very good figs, like those that 19

ripen early; the other basket had very bad figs, so bad they could not be eaten.

BARNES, "Fig-trees bear three crops of figs, of which the first is regarded as a great delicacy.GILL, "One basket had very good figs, even like the figs that are first ripe,.... As there are some figs that are ripe sooner than others, and which are always the most desirable and acceptable; and such were they that were presented to the Lord, Mic_7:1; these signified those that were carried captive into Babylon with Jeconiah, among whom were some very good men, as Ezekiel, and others; and all might be said to be so, in comparison of those that were at Jerusalem, who were very wicked, and grew worse and worse: and the other basket had very naughty figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad; as nothing is more sweet and luscious, and agreeable to the taste than a sound ripe fig, and especially a first ripe one; so nothing is more nauseous than a naughty rotten one: these signified the wicked Jews at Jerusalem indulging themselves in all manner of sin; so those who seemed to be the worst, through their being carried captive, were the best; and those who, seemed to be the best, by their prosperity, were the worst. This is to be understood in a comparative sense, as Calvin observes; though this does not so much design the quality of persons, as the issue of things, with respect unto them. The captivity of the one would issue in their good, and so are compared to good figs; when the sins of the other would bring upon them utter ruin and destruction without recovery, and therefore compared to bad figs that cannot be eaten.

JAMISON, "figs ... first ripe — the “boccora,” or early fig (see on Isa_28:4). Baskets of figs used to be offered as first-fruits in the temple. The good figs represent Jeconiah and the exiles in Babylon; the bad, Zedekiah and the obstinate Jews in Judea. They are called good and bad respectively, not in an absolute, but a comparative sense, and in reference to the punishment of the latter. This prophecy was designed to encourage the despairing exiles, and to reprove the people at home, who prided themselves as superior to those in Babylon and abused the forbearance of God (compare Jer_52:31-34).

K&D, ""The one basket very good figs" is short for: the basket was quite full of very good figs; cf. Friedr. W. M. Philippi, on the Nature and Origin of the Status constr. in Hebrew (1871), p. 93. The comparison to early figs serves simply to heighten the idea of very good; for the first figs, those ripened at the end of June, before the fruit season in August, were highly prized dainties. Cf. Isa_28:4; Hos_9:10.

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BI 2-3, "One basket had very good figs.Two baskets of figsI. The same nation may contain two distinct characters, yet both may be equally involved in a national visitation. There are laws of retribution m operation in relation to nations which, so far as the outward condition is concerned-, are no respecters of persons.II. Submission to Divine chastisement will lead, in time, to deliverance from it, while resistance will bring ruin. Two members of a family may be suffering from the same disease; the physician will insist upon submission to his treatment from both his patients. If one refuses, he must not complain of the physician, supposing he grows worse. God desired to heal the Jewish nation of its idolatrous tendencies; for this purpose He had decreed that it should go into captivity. Those who submitted willingly are hem promised that the discipline should be “for their good,” and that they should be brought again to their own land; while those who resisted, would be “consumed from off the land that He gave unto them and their fathers.”III. Lessons,

1. In this life retribution to nations is more certain than to individuals. God can deal with individual characters in any world, therefore we sometimes find the greatest villains apparently unmarked by Him now.2. Outward circumstance is no standard by which to judge God’s estimate of character. Job’s friends were not afflicted as he was, but God esteemed him far more highly than He did them.3. Moral crime is commercial ruin to a nation. Israel lost God first, and then her national prosperity and greatness. A body soon decays when the life has departed, and a putrid carcase will soon be visited by the birds of prey. (A London Minister.)

What seest thou, Jeremiah?—Reflections on some of the characteristics of the age we live inIt is not difficult to see the force and application of this homely but sententious little allegory. Jeremiah lived in those days of declension and disaster in which the invasion of Judea by the King of Babylon was not only threatened, but actually took place. He saw the departure of “the King of Judah, and the princes of Judah, with the carpenters and smiths, from Jerusalem,” and these were all “carried away captive” to Babylon. Nevertheless, many of every class were left behind, and these were placed under the government of that weak and wicked king, Zedekiah. Those who were “carried away” comprised the best of the population with regard to intelligence, religious feeling, and patriotism. Their sorrows and afflictions humbled them, so that they repented of their idolatries and obtained mercy of the Lord. In due time the way was prepared for the return of the exiles to their own land; and there, under the leadership of such men as Ezra, Nehemiah, and Zerubbabel, they founded afresh a pious commonwealth, in which the worship of the true God was ever afterwards main-rained down to the time of the coming of Christ. In them was fulfilled the promise contained in verses 4-7. On the other hand, the Jews who remained at home with Zedekiah “and his princes” revolted against God more and more. They abandoned themselves openly to licentiousness and idolatry.

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Their temper fiery and mutinous, their language blasphemous, their whole conduct infamous. (See verses 8-13.) These were the evil figs, so evil that they could not be eaten. The point suggested to us by Jeremiah’s vision is, that there occur periods, or special circumstances, in the religious life of nations, which tend to develop and force the maturation of character with unusual energy and astonishing rapidity. In such times, you do not find people merely good or bad; but the good are very good, and the evil very evil. Now, it is evident that no parallel whatever can be drawn between our position and circumstances in England at the present time and those of Judea in the days of Jeremiah. We are not, as a nation, suffering either from internal anarchy or from external assault. But still it may be, that other influences and conditions of society are at work, producing an exactly analogous result to that at the time referred to in the text.I. Certain peculiarities of our times and position my be noted.

1. This is an age of extraordinary intellectual and social activity. The most absolute liberty of speech exists, and men shrink from the utterance of no opinion, the broaching of no speculation. This unusual activity and daring of thought produces rapid and extraordinary changes in both political and ecclesiastical affairs. Amid the astonishment and whirl of such events, it requires a great effort to keep the mind calm, and hold fast in our judgments, utterances, and actions to the sober requirements of sound principle and acknowledged truth (Pro_17:27, margin).2. The very full and clear religious light which we enjoy.3. The corresponding increase of activity in the Church. All manner of special devices are being tried and carried out vigorously whereby to reach all classes, to instruct the most ignorant and reform the most vicious, whilst ancient and ordinary means of grace are sustained with unprecedented interest and efficiency.

II. What do all these things import? and what do they necessitate on our part individually? Truly we find here divers potent and stimulating agencies in operation, calculated to arouse us up to repentance and godly solicitude, and then to prompt us on to vigorous Christian life and action. If we yield to them, how fast and far may we soon be carried in the path of faith, in a career of usefulness! What bold, what firm, what fruitful Christians we must become if we enter fully into “the spirit of the times,” considered as engaged on the side of Christ and His Gospel! But if we refuse to do so, if we set ourselves to resist these powerful influences, how strenuous must that resistance be! how determined and how self-conscious that action of the will which still fights against God and clings to worldliness and sin! Facts are in harmony with these reasonings. Illustrations abound on every side. In this earnest age you find earnest men both for good and evil. Was ever war conducted on so fearful a scale as we have lately witnessed? In our day, we have also seen such specimens of commercial roguery and robbery, conceived on so magnificent a scale, and executed under so clever and admirable a cloak of hypocrisy, as no previous age has ever presented to the world. On the other hand, look at the men who stand foremost in the van of religion and philanthropy. These are God’s heroes; men are still living amongst us worthy of comparison with the spiritual heroes of ancient times, in regard to all that is noble in faith, self-denying in zeal, munificent in giving, or abundant in labours. These, indeed, are among the good figs, which by God’s grace are very good: and to the production of such instances of exalted and matured piety, the present times are not in the least unfavourable. One might speak of books, as well as men. And if, on the other hand, it be true that infidelity and immorality were never so speciously or so boldly advocated as 22

now, in sensational novels, in shallow critiques, or in vulgar serials; so, again, we defy any age to show such noble and masterly treatises as are now written by men of sanctified learning and genius, either in exposition of the Scriptures, or in vindication of their contents. Then there are public institutions and societies to be looked at. If chapels are multiplied, so are theatres. Look at the state of our large towns and cities. Were ever such facilities for evil doing? such criminal attractions for the young? so many places where vice is seductive and sin made easy? The kingdom of Satan is as active and roused up to new exertions as is the kingdom of Christ. It is said that, in the early colonisation of Van Diemen’s Land, one man took a hive of bees, and soon the island was filled with swarms, and both the trees and rocks dropped with honey; another took a handful of thistle-down, and ere long the country was overrun with prickly and gigantic weeds. Like such actions, are the deeds of all men now. Shall we, then, multiply honey-hives, or scatter thistles in the earth? Let us seek to be good, and do good: and then, behold what glorious possibilities belong to us, of being pre-eminently holy, blest and useful! (T. G. Horon.)

Figs good and badEvents are divided. “What seest thou?” I see two kinds of events, one good, and the other vile: and there they are in life. It is so in families: how do you account for it that one son prays, and the other never saw the need of prayer? The one is filial; the other has a heart of stone. Look at life broadly. What seest thou, O prophet, O man of the piercing eyes, what seest thou? Two events, or series of events, one excellent, the other vile; one leading upward, the other downward. What seest thou? Heaven—-hell. The vision is still before us; we need to have our attention called to it. He who deals in singularities, in isolations, never enters into the philosophy of Providence, the method of the sublime organisation which is denominated the universe. (J. Parker, D. D.)

CALVIN, "He now adds, that one basket had very good figs, and that the other had very bad figs. If it be asked whether Jeconiah was in himself approved by God, the answer is easy, — that he was suffering punishment for his sins. Then the Prophet speaks here comparatively, when he calls some good and others bad. We must also notice, that he speaks not here of persons but of punishment; as though he had said, “ye feel a dread when those exiles are mentioned, who have been deprived of the inheritance promised them by God: this seems hard to you; but this is moderate when ye consider what end awaits you.” He then does not call Jeconiah and other captives good in themselves; but he calls them good figs, because God had chastened them more gently than he intended to chastise Zedekiah and the rest. Thus he calls the Jews who remained bad figs, not only for this reason, because they were more wicked, though this was in part the reason, but he had regard to the punishment that was nigh at hand; for the severity of God was to be greater towards those whom he had spared, and against whom he had not immediately executed his vengeance. We now perceive the meaning of the Prophet. The rest we shall defer to the next Lecture.

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TRAPP, "Jeremiah 24:2 One basket [had] very good figs, [even] like the figs [that are] first ripe: and the other basket [had] very naughty figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad.Ver. 2. One basket had very good figs.] Maturas et praecoquas, ripe and ready early, bursas melle plenas, as one once called such good figs, purses full of honey.“ Ficus habet lactis nivei, rutilique saporemMellis, et ambrosiae similes cum nectare succos. ”- Passerat.The other basket had very naughty figs.] Sour and ill-tasted, because blasted, haply, or worm eaten, &c. Of the Athenians Plutarch (a) saith, that they were all very good or stark naught; no middle men: like as that country also produceth both the most excellent honey and the most deadly poison. Sure it is that non sunt media coram Deo, neque placet tepiditas, before God every man is either a good tree yielding good fruit, or an evil tree bearing evil fruit. He that is not with Christ is against him. He acknowledgeth not a mediocrity, he detesteth an indifference in religion; hot or cold he wisheth men, and threateneth to "spue the lukewarm out of his mouth." [Revelation 3:15-16] The best that can be said of such neuter passives is that which Tacitus saith of Galba, Magis extra vitia quam cum virtutibus, that they are rather not vicious than virtuous; their goodness is merely negative. The world crieth them up for right honest men, but God decrieth them for naught, stark naught; they may not be endured, they are so naught. See Luke 16:15. COKE, "Jeremiah 24:2. Like the figs that are first ripe— Dr. Shaw speaks of three sorts of figs; the first of which he calls the boccore, (being those here spoken of) which comes to maturity towards the middle or latter end of June; the second the kermez, or summer fig, which seldom ripens before August; and the third, which he calls the winter fig: this is usually of a much longer shape and darker complexion than the kermez, hanging and ripening upon the tree even after the leaves are shed; and provided the winter proves temperate, is gathered as a delicious morsel in the spring. Shaw's Travels, p. 370 fol. PETT, "Jeremiah 24:2‘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.’Of the baskets of figs one contained very good figs, like first ripe figs (signifying the very best, compare Isaiah 28:4; Hosea 9:10). and one contained very bad figs, which were so bad that they could not be stomached. This may suggest that they had been brought before YHWH to be tested, or it may be saying that what Jerusalem is now offering to YHWH is fruit that has gone off, in contrast with what it had previously

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offered, fruit which had potential.EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE COMMENTARY, "SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS CORRUPTION"Very bad figs too bad to be eaten."- Jeremiah 24:2; Jeremiah 24:8; Jeremiah 29:17PROPHETS and preachers have taken the Israelites for God’s helots, as if the Chosen People had been made drunk with the cup of the Lord’s indignation, in order that they might be held up as a warning to His more favoured children throughout after ages. They seemed depicted as "sinners above all men," that by this supreme warning the heirs of a better covenant may be kept in the path of righteousness. Their sin is no mere inference from the long tragedy of their national history, "because they have Suffered such things"; their own prophets and their own Messiah testify continually against them. Religious thought has always singled out Jeremiah as the most conspicuous and uncompromising witness to the sins of his people. One chief feature of his mission was to declare God’s condemnation of ancient Judah. Jeremiah watched and shared the prolonged agony and overwhelming catastrophes of the last days of the Jewish monarchy, and ever and anon raised his voice to declare that his fellow countrymen suffered, not as martyrs, but as criminals. He was like the herald who accompanies a condemned man on the way to execution, and proclaims his crime to the spectators.What were these crimes? How was Jerusalem a sink of iniquity, an Augean stable, only to be cleansed by turning through it the floods of Divine chastisement? The annalists of Egypt and Chaldea show no interest in the morality of Judah; but there is no reason to believe that they regarded Jerusalem as more depraved than Tyre, or Babylon, or Memphis. If a citizen of one of these capitals of the East visited the city of David he might miss something of accustomed culture, and might have occasion to complain of the inferiority of local police arrangements, but he would be as little conscious of any extraordinary wickedness in the city as a Parisian would in London. Indeed, if an English Christian familiar with the East of the nineteenth century could be transported to Jerusalem under King Zedekiah, in all probability its moral condition would not affect him very differently from that of Cabul or Ispahan.When we seek to learn from Jeremiah wherein the guilt of Judah lay, his answer is neither clear nor full: he does not gather up her sins into any complete and detailed indictment; we are obliged to avail ourselves of casual references scattered through his prophecies. For the most part Jeremiah speaks in general terms; a precise. and exhaustive catalogue of current vices would have seemed too familiar and commonplace for the written record.The corruption of Judah is summed up by Jeremiah in the phrase "the evil of your doings," and her punishment is described in a corresponding phrase as "the fruit of your doings," or as coming upon her "because of the evil of your doings." The

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original of "doings" is a peculiar word occurring most frequently in Jeremiah, and the phrases are very common in Jeremiah, and hardly occur at all elsewhere. The constant reiteration of this melancholy refrain is an eloquent symbol of Jehovah’s sweeping condemnation. In the total depravity of Judah, no special sin, no one group of sins, stood out from the rest. Their "doings" were evil altogether.The picture suggested by the scattered hints as to the character of these evil doings is such as might be drawn of almost any Eastern state in its darker days. The arbitrary hand of the. government is illustrated by Jeremiah’s own experience of the bastinado [Jeremiah 20:2; Jeremiah 37:15] and the dungeon, (chapters 37, 38) and by the execution of Uriah ben Shemaiah. [Jeremiah 26:20-24] The rights of less important personages were not likely to be more scrupulously respected. The reproach of shedding innocent blood is more than once made against the people and their rulers; [Jeremiah 2:34; Jeremiah 19:4; Jeremiah 22:17] and the more general charge of oppression occurs still more frequently. [Jeremiah 5:25; Jeremiah 6:6; Jeremiah 7:5]The motive for both these crimes was naturally covetousness; [Jeremiah 6:13] as usual, they were specially directed against the helpless, "the poor," [Jeremiah 2:34] "the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow"; and the machinery of oppression was ready to hand in venal judges and rulers. Upon occasion, however, recourse was had to open violence-men could "steal and murder," as well as "swear falsely"; [Jeremiah 7:5-9] they lived in an atmosphere of falsehood, they "walked in a lie." [Jeremiah 23:14] Indeed the word "lie" is one of the keynotes of these prophecies. The last days of the monarchy offered special temptations to such vices. Social wreckers reaped an unhallowed harvest in these stormy times. Revolutions were frequent, and each in its turn meant fresh plunder for unscrupulous partisans. Flattery and treachery could always find a market in the court of the suzerain or the camp of the invader. Naturally, amidst this general demoralization, the life of the family did not remain untouched: "the land was full of adulterers." [Jeremiah 23:10; Jeremiah 23:14] Zedekiah and Ahab, the false prophets at Babylon are accused of having committed adultery with their neighbours’ wives. [Jeremiah 29:23] In these passages "adultery" can scarcely be a figure for idolatry; and even if it is, idolatry always involved immoral ritual.In accordance with the general teaching of the Old Testament, Jeremiah traces the roots of the people’s depravity to a certain moral stupidity; they are "a foolish people, without understanding," who, like the idols in Psalms 115:5-6, "have eyes and see not" and "have ears and hear not." In keeping with their stupidity was an unconsciousness of guilt which even rose into proud self-righteousness. They could still come with pious fervour to worship in the temple of Jehovah and to claim the protection of its inviolable sanctity. They could still assail Jeremiah with righteous indignation because he announced the coming destruction of the place where Jehovah had chosen to set His name. (chapters 7, 26) They said that they had no sin, and met the prophet’s rebukes with protests of conscious innocence: "Wherefore hath Jehovah pronounced all this great evil against us? or what is our iniquity? or

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what is our sin that we have committed against Jehovah our God?" [Jeremiah 16:10]When the public conscience condoned alike the abuse of the forms of law and its direct violation, actual legal rights would be strained to the utmost against debtors, hired labourers, and slaves. In their extremity, the princes and people of Judah sought to propitiate the anger of Jehovah by emancipating their Hebrew slaves; when the immediate danger had passed away for a time, they revoked the emancipation. (Chapter 34) The form of their submission to Jehovah reveals their consciousness that their deepest sin lay in their behaviour to their helpless dependents. This prompt repudiation of a most solemn covenant illustrated afresh their callous indifference to the well-being of their inferiors. The depravity of Judah was not only total, it was also universal. In the older histories we read how Achan’s single act of covetousness involved the whole people in misfortune, and how the treachery of the bloody house of Saul brought three years’ famine upon the land; but now the sins of individuals and classes were merged in the general corruption. Jeremiah dwells with characteristic reiteration of idea and phrase upon this melancholy truth. Again and again he enumerates the different classes of the community: "kings, princes, priests, prophets, men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem." They had all done evil and provoked Jehovah to anger; they were all to share the same punishment. [Jeremiah 32:26-35] cf. "Characteristic Expressions." (chapter 3) They were all arch rebels, given to slander; nothing but base metal; corrupters, every one of them. [Jeremiah 6:28] "The universal extent of total depravity is most forcibly expressed when Zedekiah with his court and people are summarily described as a basket of "very bad figs, too bad to be eaten." The dark picture of Israel’s corruption is not yet complete-Israel’s corruption, for now the prophet is no longer exclusively concerned with Judah. The sin of these last days is no new thing; it is as old as the Israelite occupation of Jerusalem. "This city hath been to Me a provocation of My anger and of My fury from the day that they built it even unto this day"; from the earliest days of Israel’s national existence, from the time of Moses and the Exodus, the people have been given over to iniquity. "The children of Israel and the children of Judah have done nothing but evil before Me from their youth. [Jeremiah 32:26-35] Thus we see at last that Jeremiah’s teaching concerning the sin of Judah can be summed up in one brief and comprehensive proposition. Throughout their whole history all classes of the community have been wholly given over to every kind of wickedness.This gloomy estimate of God’s Chosen People is substantially confirmed by the prophets of the later monarchy, from Amos and Hosea onwards. Hosea speaks of Israel in terms as sweeping as those of Jeremiah. "Hear the word of Jehovah, ye children of Israel; for Jehovah hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. Swearing and lying and killing and stealing and committing adultery, they cast off all restraint, and blood toucheth blood." As a prophet of the Northern Kingdom, Hosea is mainly concerned with his own country, but his casual references to Judah include her in the same condemnation. Amos again condemns both Israel and

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Judah: Judah, "because they have despised the law of Jehovah, and have not kept His commandments, and their lies caused them to err, after the which their fathers walked"; Israel, "because they sold the righteous for silver and the poor for a pair of shoes, and pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor and turn aside the way of the meek." [Amos 2:4-8] The first chapter of Isaiah is in a similar strain: Israel is "a sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil-doers"; "the whole head is sick, the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores." According to Micah, "Zion is built up with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity. The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money." [Micah 3:10-11]Jeremiah’s older and younger contemporaries, Zephaniah and Ezekiel, alike confirm his testimony. In the spirit and even the style afterwards used by Jeremiah, Zephaniah enumerates the sins of the nobles and teachers of Jerusalem. "Her princes within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolvesHer prophets are light and treacherous persons: her priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law." [Zephaniah 3:3-4] Ezekiel 20:1-49 traces the defections of Israel from the sojourn in Egypt to the Captivity. Elsewhere Ezekiel says that "the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence"; (Ezekiel 7:23 :; Ezekiel 7:9; Ezekiel 22:1-12) Jeremiah 22:23-30 he catalogues the sins of priests, princes, prophets, and people, and proclaims that Jehovah "sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before Me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none."We have now fairly before us the teaching of Jeremiah and the other prophets as to the condition of Judah: the passages quoted or referred to represent its general tone and attitude; it remains to estimate its significance. We should naturally suppose that such sweeping statements as to the total depravity of the whole people throughout all their history were not intended to be interpreted as exact mathematical formulae. And the prophets themselves state or imply qualifications. Isaiah insists upon the existence of a righteous remnant. When Jeremiah speaks of Zedekiah and his subjects as a basket of very bad figs, he also speaks of the Jews who had already gone into captivity as a basket of very good figs. The mere fact of going into captivity can hardly have accomplished an immediate and wholesale conversion. The "good figs" among the captives were presumably good before they went into exile. Jeremiah’s general statements that "they were all arch rebels" do not therefore preclude the existence of righteous men in the community, Similarly, when he tells us that the city and people have always been given over to iniquity, Jeremiah is not ignorant of Moses and Joshua, David and Solomon, and the kings "who did right in the eyes of Jehovah"; nor does he intend to contradict the familiar accounts of ancient history. On the other hand, the universality which the prophets ascribe to the corruption of their people is no mere figure of rhetoric, and yet it is by no means incompatible with the view that Jerusalem, in its worst days, was not more conspicuously wicked than Babylon or Tyre; or even, allowing for the altered circumstances of the times, than London or Paris. It would never have occurred to

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Jeremiah to apply the average morality of Gentile cities as a standard by which to judge Jerusalem; and Christian readers of the Old Testament have caught something of the old prophetic spirit. The very introduction into the present context of any comparison between Jerusalem and Babylon may seem to have a certain flavour of irreverence. We perceive with the prophets that the City of Jehovah and the cities of the Gentiles must be placed in different categories. The popular modern explanation is that heathenism was so utterly abominable that Jerusalem at its worst was still vastly superior to Nineveh or Tyre. However exaggerated such views may be, they still contain an element of truth; but Jeremiah’s estimate of the moral condition of Judah was based on entirely different ideas. His standards were not relative, but absolute; not practical, but ideal. His principles were the very antithesis of the tacit ignoring of difficult and unusual duties, the convenient and somewhat shabby compromise represented by the modern word "respectable." Israel was to be judged by its relation to Jehovah’s purpose for His people. Jehovah had called them out of Egypt, and delivered them from a thousand dangers. He had raised up for them judges and kings, Moses, David, and Isaiah. He had spoken to them by Torah and by prophecy. This peculiar munificence of Providence and Revelation was not meant to produce a people only better by some small percentage than their heathen neighbours.The comparison between Israel and its neighbours would no doubt be much more favourable under David than under Zedekiah, but even then the outcome of Mosaic religion as practically embodied in the national life was utterly unworthy of the Divine ideal; to have described the Israel of David or the Judah of Hezekiah as Jehovah’s specially cherished possession, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, [Exodus 19:6] would have seemed a ghastly irony even to the sons of Zeruiah, far more to Nathan, Gad, or Isaiah. Nor had any class, as a class, been wholly true to Jehovah at any period of the history. If for any considerable time the numerous order of professional prophets had had a single eye to the glory of Jehovah, the fortunes of Israel would have been altogether different, and where prophets failed, priests and princes and common people were not likely to succeed.Hence, judged as citizens of God’s Kingdom on earth, the Israelites were corrupt in every faculty of their nature: as masters and servants, as rulers and subjects, as priests, prophets, and worshippers of Jehovah, they succumbed to selfishness and cowardice, and perpetrated the ordinary crimes and vices of ancient Eastern life.The reader is perhaps tempted to ask: Is this all that is meant by the fierce and impassioned denunciations of Jeremiah? Not quite all. Jeremiah had had the mortification of seeing the great religious revival under Josiah spend itself, apparently in vain, against the ingrained corruption of the people. The reaction, as under Manasseh, had accentuated the worst features of the national life. At the same time the constant distress and dismay caused by disastrous invasionstended to general license and anarchy. A long period of decadence reached its nadir.But these are mere matters of degree and detail; the main thing for Jeremiah was

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not that Judah had become worse, but that it had failed to become better. One great period of Israel’s probation was finally closed. The kingdom had served its purpose in the Divine Providence; but it was impossible to hope any longer that the Jewish monarchy was to prove the earthly embodiment of the Kingdom of God. There was no prospect of Judah attaining a social order appreciably better than that of the surrounding nations. Jehovah and His Revelation would be disgraced by any further association with the Jewish state.Certain schools of socialists bring a similar charge against the modern social order; that it is not a Kingdom of God upon earth is sufficiently obvious; and they assert that our social system has become stereotyped on lines that exclude and resist progress towards any higher ideal. Now it is certainly true that every great civilisation hitherto has grown old and obsolete; if Christian society is to establish its right to abide permanently, it must show itself something more than an improved edition of the Athens of Pericles or the Empire of the Antonines.All will agree that Christendom falls sadly short of its ideal, and therefore we may seek to gather instruction from Jeremiah’s judgment on the shortcomings of Judah. Jeremiah specially emphasises the universality of corruption in individual character, in all classes of society and throughout the whole duration of history. Similarly we have to recognise that prevalent social and moral evils lower the general tone of individual character. Moral faculties are not set apart in watertight compartments. "Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, is guilty of all," is no mere forensic principle. The one offence impairs the earnestness and sincerity with which a man keeps the rest of the law, even though there may be no obvious lapse. There are moral surrenders made to the practical exigencies of commercial, social, political, and ecclesiastical life. Probably we should be startled and dismayed if we understood the consequent sacrifice of individual character.We might also learn from the prophet that the responsibility for our social evils rests with all classes. Time was when the lower classes were plentifully lectured as the chief authors of public troubles; now it is the turn of the capitalist, the parson, and the landlord. The former policy had no very marked success, possibly the new method may not fare better.Wealth and influence imply opportunity and responsibility which do not belong to the poor and feeble; but power is by no means confined to the privileged classes; and the energy, ability, and self-denial embodied in the great Trades Unions have sometimes shown themselves as cruel and selfish towards the weak and destitute as any association of capitalists. A necessary preliminary to social amendment is a General confession by each class of its own sins. Finally, the Divine Spirit had taught Jeremiah that Israel had always been sadly imperfect. He did not deny Divine Providence and human hope by teaching that the Golden Age lay in the past, that the Kingdom of God had been realised and allowed to perish. He was under no foolish delusion as to "the good old times"; in his most despondent moods he was not given over to wistful reminiscence. His example may help us not to become

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discouraged through exaggerated ideas about the attainments of past generations.In considering modern life it may seem that we pass to an altogether different quality of evil to that denounced by Jeremiah, that we have lost sight of anything that could justify his fierce indignation, and thus that we fail in appreciating his character and message. Any such illusion may be corrected by a glance at the statistics of congested town districts, sweated industries, and prostitution. A social reformer, living in contact with these evils, may be apt to think Jeremiah’s denunciations specially adapted to the society which tolerates them with almost unruffled complacency.PULPIT, "Like the figs that are first ripe. The early spring fig was considered a special delicacy (comp. Isaiah 27:4; Hosea 9:10); "ficus praecox," Pliny calls it ('Hist. Nat.,' 15.19, quoted by Trench). Tristram suggests that the "bad figs" were those of a sycamore tree.

3 Then the Lord asked me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?”“Figs,” I answered. “The good ones are very good, but the bad ones are so bad they cannot be eaten.”

GILL, "Then said the Lord unto me, what seest thou, Jeremiah?.... This question is put, in order that, upon his answer to it, he might have an explication of the vision: and I said, figs; the good figs, very good; and the evil, very evil, that cannot be eaten, they are so evil; or "so bad", or "because of badness" (b); which may be applied to mankind in general; who may be distinguished into good and bad: those that are good, who are made so by the grace of God; for none are so by nature, or of themselves; they are very good: they have many good things in them; they have a good heart, a new and a clean heart, and a right spirit created in them; they have a good understanding of spiritual things; they have a good will to that which is good, and good affections for God and Christ, and divine things; they have the good Spirit of God and his

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graces in them, and Christ and his word dwelling in them: and they do good things, and are prepared for every good work; they are good to others; pleasantly and acceptably good to God through Christ; and profitably good to their fellow saints and fellow creatures. On the other hand, those that are bad are exceeding bad; as they are by nature children of wrath, unclean, corrupt, loathsome, and abominable in the sight of God; so they are from their youth upward, and continue so, and are never otherwise; all in them, and that comes from them, are evil; their hearts are desperately wicked, the thoughts and imaginations of their hearts are evil continually; their words are idle, corrupt, and filthy, and all their actions sinful; there is no good in them, nor any done by them; they are good for nothing; they are of no use to God, to themselves, or others; sin has made them like itself, exceeding sinful: and now between these two sorts there is no medium; though all sins are not alike; and some in a comparative sense may be called greater or lesser sinners; yet all are exceeding bad, even the least: they are all of the same nature, and have the same wicked hearts; though some may be outwardly righteous before men; and hypocrites and formal professors are worst of all. There never were but two sorts of persons in the world; the seed of the woman, and the seed of the serpent; the children of God, and the children of the devil; and so things will appear hereafter at the great day; the one will be placed at Christ's right hand as good and righteous men, the other at his left hand as wicked, and will have separate states to all eternity: and so those figs are explained in the Talmud (c); the good figs, they are the perfect righteous; the bad figs, they are the perfect wicked. K&D, "The question: what seest thou? serves merely to give the object seen greater

prominence, and does not imply the possibility of seeing wrong (Näg.).CALVIN, "In the last Lecture we began to explain the meaning of the vision which the Prophet relates. We said that the miserable exiles whose condition might have appeared to be the worst, are yet compared to good figs, and that those who still remained in the country are compared to bad and bitter figs. We have explained why God shewed this vision to his servant Jeremiah, even because the captives might have otherwise been driven to despair, especially through the weariness of delay, for they saw that their brethren were still in possession of the inheritance granted them by God, while they were driven into a far country, and as it were disinherited, so that no one could regard them as God’s people. As then despair might have overwhelmed their minds, God designed to give them some comfort. On the other hand, those who remained in the land not only exulted over the miserable exiles, but also abused the forbearance of God, so that they obstinately resisted all threatenings, and thus hardened themselves more and more against God’s judgment, hence God declares what was remotest from what was commonly thought, that they had a better lot who lived captives in Babylon than those who remained quietly as it were in their own nest. ELLICOTT, "(3) What seest thou, Jeremiah?—The question is asked as if to force the symbol as strongly as possible on the prophet’s mind, leaving him to wait till another word of the Lord should come and reveal its true interpretation. We are reminded, as he must have been, of the vision and the question which had first called him to his work as a prophet (Jeremiah 1:11).

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TRAPP, "Jeremiah 24:3 Then said the LORD unto me, What seest thou, Jeremiah? And I said, Figs; the good figs, very good; and the evil, very evil, that cannot be eaten, they are so evil.Ver. 3. What seest thou, Jeremiah?] See on Jeremiah 1:11.The good figs, very good.] See on Jeremiah 24:2.PETT, "Jeremiah 24:3‘Then YHWH said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” And I said, “Figs; the good figs, very good; and the bad, very bad, which cannot be eaten, they are so bad.”YHWH then asked what Jeremiah saw, and Jeremiah described the two baskets of figs, indicating that one basket contained very good figs and the other very bad figs, so bad that they could not be stomached. (The repetition is made in order to emphasise the important facts). We do not know whether the baskets were simply seen in vision, or whether they were baskets of firstfruits or summer fruits brought as an offering to YWHW which He used to bring an object lesson to Jeremiah (compare the widow’s two mites in Mark 12:41-44). If the latter it may have been intended to indicate two different attitudes revealed by the offerings, with some bringing their very best (like Abel) and others treating YHWH with contempt by bringing rubbish because they did not want to ‘waste’ good fruit..

4 Then the word of the Lord came to me:

BARNES, "The complete fulfillment of this prophecy belongs to the Christian Church. There is a close analogy between Jeremiah at the first destruction of Jerusalem and our Lord at the second. There the good figs were those converts picked out by the preaching of Christ and the Apostles; the bad figs were the mass of the people left for Titus and the Romans to destroy.GILL, "Again the word of the Lord came unto me, saying. As follows; where an explanation is given of the above vision, to which this is a transition.

K&D 4-7, "The interpretation of the symbol. Jer_24:5. Like the good figs, the Lord 33

will look on the captives in Chaldea for good ("for good" belongs to the verb "look on them"). The point of resemblance is: as one looks with pleasure on good figs, takes them and keeps them, so will I bestow my favour on Judah's captives. Looking on them for good is explained, Jer_24:6 : the Lord will set His eye on them, bring them back into their land and build them up again. With "build them," etc., cf. Jer_1:10. The building and planting of the captives is not to consist solely in the restoration of their former civilwell-being, but will be a spiritual regeneration of the people. God will give them a heart to know Him as their God, so that they may be in truth His people, and He their God. "For they will return," not: when they return (Ew., Hitz.). The turning to the Lord cannot be regarded as the condition of their receiving favour, because God will give them a heart to know Him; it is the working of the knowledge of the Lord put in their hearts. And thisis adduced to certify the idea that they will then be really the Lord's people.

COFFMAN, "THE PARABLE EXPLAINED"And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel: Like these good figs, so will I regard the captives of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans, for good. For I will set mine eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them again to this land: and I will build them, and not pull them down; and I will plant them, and not pluck them up. And I will give them a heart to know me, that I am Jehovah: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God; for they shall return unto me with their whole heart."The captivity in Babylon, in some ways, was like the long sojourn of the children of Jacob in Egypt which also ended in the captivity of the nation. In the days of Judah, the son of Jacob, there was grave danger of the Israelites becoming amalgamated with the citizens of Canaan; but God transferred them to Egypt where the whole nation was despised and where any amalgamation with Egypt was virtually impossible. Their sojourn in Egypt kept them segregated and enabled them to develop into a powerful people. So here, the captivity in Babylon would finally eradicate idolatry from the preference of the Hebrew people. This and many other things were meant by the Lord's word that he was sending Israel into Babylon "for good." "Green spoke of the exiles thus: 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."[5]It is sad indeed that the subsequent history of the returnees did not exhibit such desirable results in all of the people. Ash's comment on this is accurate. "Post-exilic sources from Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi show that the real situation was something less than the expectation mentioned here."[6]

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Despite this truth, however, there were indeed those who waited for the kingdom of God; and, in the fullness of time, Mary would wrap her babe in swaddling clothes; and the Redeemer of Mankind would be cradled in a manger in Bethlehem! From people like Mary and Joseph, and Zacharias and Elizabeth, and Simeon, and Anna, and Nathaniel, and Zacchaeus, the holy Apostles, and that handful of 120 people in the upper room on Pentecost, from people like that and a few others, the New Israel of God was formed; and the kingdom of heaven on earth was launched when the Word of the Lord went forth from Jerusalem on Pentecost! Without the hard discipline of the Baylonian captivity, not even this humble beginning could ever have been achieved.ELLICOTT, "(4) Again the word of the Lord came unto me.—The words seem to imply an interval, during which the prophet was left to ponder over the symbols that he had thus seen. At last “the word of the Lord came” and made their meaning clear.PETT, "Jeremiah 24:4-5‘And the word of YHWH came to me, saying, “Thus says YHWH, the God of Israel, Like these good figs, so will I regard the captives of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans, for good.”YHWH then revealed to him that the good figs represented the captives from Judah who had been ‘sent by Him’ out of ‘this place’ (Judah and Jerusalem) into the land of the Chaldeans, and that He now intended to ‘regard’ them as good (even though on the whole they were not) and had therefore done it with their ‘good’ in mind. This was why He regarded them as being like the good figs. (They were at that stage at least partially responding to Ezekiel’s ministry, no doubt helped by the fact that Daniel was governor of Babylonia).

5 “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Like these good figs, I regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I sent away from this place to the land of the Babylonians.[b]

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BARNES, "Jer_24:5Acknowledge ... for their good - Specially their spiritual good. Put a comma after Chaldaeans.CLARKE, "Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge - Those already carried

away into captivity, I esteem as far more excellent than those who still remain in the land. They have not sinned so deeply, and they are now penitent; and, therefore, I will set mine eyes upon them for good, Jer_24:6. I will watch over them by an especial providence, and they shall be restored to their own land.

GILL, "Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel,.... Of all the tribes of Israel; of the ten tribes that had been carried captive long ago by the king of Assyria; and of the other two tribes, part of whom were in Babylon, and the other in Judea, who were not wholly cut off by the Lord; but he still had a regard for them; and therefore introduces what he was about to say in this manner: like those good figs, so will I acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah; that they are good men, and like those good rigs, even those that were; and though they are carried captive: or, "I will know them" (d); take notice of them; show an affectionate love to them, and care of them; make himself known unto them, and own them for his, in the furnace of affliction: whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for theirgood; or "for good things", as the Septuagint and other versions; for their temporal good; some were raised to great honours, as Daniel, and his associates; others got and possessed estates in Babylon, and some returned with favours and riches: and this was also for their spiritual good; to bring them to a sense of their sins, to repentance for them, and acknowledgment of them; and particularly to cure them of idolatry, which it effectually did; so the Lord makes all "things to work together for good", to them that love him, Rom_8:28; and it may be observed, that though the Chaldeans carried the Jews captive out of their own land, and the city of Jerusalem, meant by "this place", into the land of Babylon, yet they were only instruments; it was the Lord's doing; he sent them thither. Jarchi connects the phrase "for good" with the word "acknowledge", supposing a transposition of the words, thus, "I will acknowledge them for good".

HENRY, " God owns their captivity to be his doing. Whoever were the instruments of it, he ordered and directed it (Jer_24:5): I have sent them out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans. It is God that puts his gold into the furnace, to be tried; his hand is, in a special manner, to be eyed in the afflictions of good people. The judge orders the malefactor into the hand of an executioner, but the father corrects the child with his own hand.

(3.) Even this disgraceful uncomfortable captivity God intended for their benefit; and we are sure that his intentions are never frustrated: I have sent them into the land of the Chaldeans for their good. It seemed to be every way for their hurt, not only as it was the 36

ruin of their estates, honours, and liberties, separated them from their relations and friends, and put them under the power of their enemies and oppressors, but as it sunk their spirits, discouraged their faith, deprived them of the benefit of God's oracles and ordinances, and exposed them to temptations; and yet it was designed for their good, and proved so, in the issue, as to many of them. Out of the eater came forth meat. By their afflictions they were convinced of sin, humbled under the hand of God, weaned from the world, made serious, taught to pray, and turned from their iniquity; particularly they were cured of their inclination to idolatry; and thus it was good for them that they were afflicted, Psa_119:67, Psa_119:71.(4.) God promises them that he will own them in their captivity. Though they seem abandoned, they shall be acknowledged; the scornful relations they left behind will scarcely own them, or their kindred to them, but God says, I will acknowledge them.Note, The Lord knows those that are his, and will own them in all conditions; nakedness and sword shall not separate them from his love.JAMISON, "acknowledge — regard with favor, like as thou lookest on the good

figs favorably.for their good — Their removal to Babylon saved them from the calamities which befell the rest of the nation and led them to repentance there: so God bettered their condition (2Ki_25:27-30). Daniel and Ezekiel were among these captives.K&D, "The interpretation of the symbol. Jer_24:5. Like the good figs, the Lord will

look on the captives in Chaldea for good ("for good" belongs to the verb "look on them"). The point of resemblance is: as one looks with pleasure on good figs, takes them and keeps them, so will I bestow my favour on Judah's captives. Looking on them for good is explained, Jer_24:6 : the Lord will set His eye on them, bring them back into their land and build them up again. With "build them," etc., cf. Jer_1:10. The building and planting of the captives is not to consist solely in the restoration of their former civil well-being, but will be a spiritual regeneration of the people. God will give them a heart to know Him as their God, so that they may be in truth His people, and He their God. "For they will return," not: when they return (Ew., Hitz.). The turning to the Lord cannot be regarded as the condition of their receiving favour, because God will give them a heart to know Him; it is the working of the knowledge of the Lord put in their hearts. And this is adduced to certify the idea that they will then be really the Lord's people.

CALVIN, "We have said that the badness of the figs is not to be explained of guilt, but of punishment: and this is what Jeremiah confirms, when he says, As these good figs, so will I acknowledge the captivity for good, or for beneficence, טובה, thube. It is well known that captivity means the persons led captive, it being a collective word. Then he says,“I will acknowledge the captives of Judah, whom I have driven from this people, so as to do them good again.” (124)As this doctrine was then incredible, God calls the attention of the Jews to the final issue; as though he had said, that they were mistaken who took only a present view

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of things, and did not extend their thoughts to the hope of mercy. For they thus reasoned, “It is better to remain in the country where God is worshipped, where the Temple is and the altar, than to live among heathen nations; it is better to have some liberty than to be under the yoke of tyranny; it is better to retain even the name of being a separate people than to be scattered here and there, so as not to be a community at all.” Hence, according to their state at that time, they thought their condition better: but God corrected this wrong judgment; for they ought to have looked to the end, and what awaited the exiles and captives as well as those whom the king of Babylon had for a time spared. Though, indeed, it was the Prophet’s object to alleviate the grief of those who had been led away into Chaldea, yet he had a special regard to the people over whom he was appointed an instructor and teacher. He was then at Jerusalem; and we know how perverse were those whom he had to contend with, for none could have been more obstinate than that people. As God had delayed his punishment, they supposed that they had wholly escaped, especially as they had an uncle as a successor to their captive king.Hence, then, was their contempt of threatenings; hence was their greater liberty in sinning: they thought that God had taken vengeance on the exiles, and that they were saved as being the more excellent portion of the community. The Prophet, therefore, in order to break down this presumption, which he could not bend, set before them this vision, which had been given him from above. We now, then, see that the doctrine especially set forth is, that God would remember the captives for the purpose of doing them good, as though he had said that a wrong judgment was formed of the calamity of a few years, and that the end was to be looked to. It follows — ELLICOTT, "(5) So will I acknowledge.—The expected revelation came. The two baskets represented the two sections of the people. The captives who had been carried to Babylon were, as the list shows, for the most part of higher rank than those who were left behind. The workmen were the skilled labourers of the artisan class. There are many indications that under the teaching of Daniel and his companions, and of Ezekiel, they were improving morally under their discipline of suffering. Their very contact with the monstrous idolatry of Babylon made them more conscious than they had ever been before of the greatness of their own faith. The process which, at the end of the seventy years of exile, made them once more and for ever a purely monotheistic people had already begun.TRAPP, "Jeremiah 24:5 Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel; Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for [their] good.Ver. 5. Like these good figs.] Quas sic dat et arbor et aura, when once God hath made the tree good, the fruit will be good.So will I acknowledge.] Heb., Know, that is, own, or take special notice of, and this made the difference.

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Whom I have sent out of this place for their good.] It is for their good, temporal and eternal, that God chastiseth his children. Jehoiachin was preferred at length; and as the Jewish doctors say, converted, as Manasseh had been before him. Daniel and his associates were set over the kingdom. The Jews got good estates and respect in the land of their captivity, [Jeremiah 29:4 Esther 9:4; Esther 9:29] and were at length sent back with many favours and privileges, &c.COKE, "Jeremiah 24:5. Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge— "As he who has figs in his garden acknowledges those of the first season as his, and as part of his property, and neglects the autumnal figs as having no taste, and fit only to be trodden under foot; so will I," &c. The Jews who remained in their own country, flattered themselves with being more beloved by the Almighty than their brethren who were carried away captive. To check this vain confidence, God promised to shew the latter particular marks of his favour in a strange land; and accordingly, we find that many of these, as Daniel and his companions, for instance, found great esteem and honour during their captivity. See chap. Jeremiah 29:17. Lowth and Houbigant.

6 My eyes will watch over them for their good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them.

GILL, "For I will set mine eyes upon them for good,.... His eyes of omniscience, providence, and grace; to communicate good things to them; to take care of them in the furnace of affliction, that they were not lost, but made the better; to watch over them, protect and defend them; to deliver them out of their troubles, and to bring them into their own land; as follows: and I will bring them again into this land: the land of Judea, and city of Jerusalem, where Jeremiah now was, and saw this vision: this was accomplished when the seventy years' captivity was ended: and I will build them, and not pull them down; and I will plant them, and not pluck them up; alluding to the building of houses, and planting of vineyards; signifying that they and their families should be built up and continue; yea, that they should be a habitation for God, and the vineyard of the Lord of hosts, of his planting,

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and which should remain: this will be more fully accomplished in the latter day; though it had in part a fulfilment upon the Jews' return from captivity.HENRY, " God assures them of his protection in their trouble, and a glorious

deliverance out of it in due time, Jer_24:6. Being sent into captivity for their good, they shall not be lost there; but it shall be with them as it is with gold which the refiner puts into the furnace. [1.] He has his eye upon it while it is there, and it is a careful eye, to see that it sustain no damage: “I will set my eyes upon them for good, to order every thing for the best, that all the circumstances of the affliction may concur to the answering of the great intention of it.” [2.] He will be sure to take it out of the furnace again as soon as the work designed upon it is done: I will bring them again to this land. They were sent abroad for improvement awhile, under a severe discipline; but they shall be fetched back, when they have gone through their trial there, to their Father's house. [3.] He will fashion his gold when he has refined it, will make it a vessel of honour fit for his use; so, when God has brought them back from their trial, he will build them and make them a habitation for himself, will plant them and make them a vineyard for himself. Their captivity was to square the rough stones and make them fit for his building, to prune up the young trees and make them fit for his planting.

JAMISON, "(Jer_12:15).not pull ... down ... not pluck ... up — only partially fulfilled in the restoration from Babylon; antitypically and fully to be fulfilled hereafter (Jer_32:41; Jer_33:7).

CALVIN, "He confirms what he said in the last verse, but in other words, for it was difficult to persuade them that they were happier who were apparently lost, than those who still enjoyed some measure of safety. He had said that he would acknowledge them; but he now adds, I will set my eye upon them He uses a metaphor which often occurs in Scripture, for God is said to turn away his face when he hides his favor; and in the same sense he is said to forget, to depart, not to care, to despise, to cast away. Then, as God might have seemed to have no more any care for this people, he says, “I will set my eyes on them.” But he goes even farther, for he refers to the sentence announced in the last verse — he had said that he was the author of their exile, “I have cast them into the land of the Chaldeans” but he now confirms the same thing, though in other words, when he says, “Mine eyes will I set on them for good.” For God is said to visit men, not only when he manifests his favor towards them, but also when he chastises them and punishes them for their sins. He had then set his eyes on them to execute punishment; he says now that he would act differently, that he would kindly treat the miserable.He afterwards says, I will restore them For, as he had sent them away, it was in his power to restore them. As, then, he could heal the wound inflicted by his own hand, this promise ought to have been sufficient to dispel every doubt from the minds of the captives as to their return; and further, the Jews, who as yet remained in Jerusalem and in the land of Judah, ought to have known that they in vain boasted in their good lot, as though God treated them better than their captive brethren, for

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it was in his power to restore those whom he had banished.And he adds, I will build and not pull them down, I will plant and not pluck them up This mode of speaking would not be so significant either in Latin or in Greek; but such a repetition, as it is well known, often occurs in Hebrew. But whenever a negative is added to an affirmative, such form of expression is to be thus interpreted, “I shall be so far from plucking them up, that I will plant them; I shall be so far from pulling them down, that I will build them up;” or, “since I had pulled them down, I will now build them up; since I had plucked them up, I will now plant them:” or a perpetuity may be meant, as though God had said, “I will plant them, so as not to pluck them again; I will build them, so as not to pull them down again.” But the most frequent import of such expressions is what I first mentioned, “I will not pull them down, but on the contrary build them up; I will not pluck them up, but on the contrary plant them.”The meaning of the whole is, that however sad might be the calamities of the people in Chaldea, they being as exiles reduced to a desolate condition, yet God could collect them again, like one who plants a tree or builds a house. The metaphor of building is common in Scripture, and also that of planting. God is said to plant men, when he introduces a certain order among them, or when he allots to them a certain place to dwell in, or when he grants them peace and quietness. God is said in Psalms 44:2, to have planted his people; but I will not refer to the many passages which are everywhere to be met with. God often says that he had planted his vineyard. (Isaiah 5:2, etc.) And then well known is this passage,“The branch of the Lord, and the planting for his glory.”(Isaiah 60:21)This is said of the preservation of the Church.The meaning then is, that though God severely chastised the exiles who had been led into Chaldea, yet their condition was not to be estimated by one day, or a month, or a few years, but that a happy end was to be expected. And as God intended at length to shew himself reconcilable and propitious, it follows that the calamity which had happened to them was lighter than that which awaited the rest, who resolutely despised God and his prophets, and thus increased the vengeance which had been already denounced on them. It follows, — ELLICOTT, "(6) I will set mine eyes upon them for good.—The state of the Jews at Babylon at the time of the return from exile was obviously far above that of slaves or prisoners. They had money (Ezra 2:69), they cultivated land, they built houses (Jeremiah 29:4; Jeremiah 29:28). Many were reluctant to leave their new home for the land of their fathers, and among these must have been the families represented at a later date by Ezra and the priests and Levites who accompanied him (Ezra 8:15). They were not subjected, as many conquered nations have been, to the misery of a second emigration to a more distant land. The victory of Cyrus manifestly

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brought with it every way an improvement in their condition; but even under Nebuchadnezzar they rose, as in the case of Daniel and his companions, to high honour.TRAPP, "Jeremiah 24:6 For I will set mine eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them again to this land: and I will build them, and not pull [them] down; and I will plant them, and not pluck [them] up.Ver. 6. For I will set mine eyes upon them for good.] I will see to their safety, and provide for their necessities. See Psalms 34:15. {See Trapp on "Psalms 34:15"}PETT, "Jeremiah 24:6“For I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them again to this land, and I will build them, and not pull them down, and I will plant them, and not pluck them up.”For YHWH assured Jeremiah that He intended good towards these people, and had ‘set His eyes on them for good’, and would therefore eventually bring them back again to the land of Judah, and rather than pulling them down, would build them, and instead of plucking them up, would plant them. Compare for these ideas Jeremiah 1:10; Jeremiah 12:14-17; Jeremiah 18:7-9; Jeremiah 31:27-28. In other words as a result of His sovereign activity they would be restored to the land and would begin to prosper and be established.PULPIT, "And as the evil figs. (So Jeremiah 29:16.) That dwell in the land of Egypt. Those who had fled thither during the war (comp. Jeremiah 42:1-22; Jeremiah 43:1-13.); hardly those who had been carried captive to Egypt with Jehoahaz, who would presumably have been of the better sort, such as are symbolized by the good figs.BI 6-7, "For I will set Mine eyes upon them for good, and l will bring them again to this land.God’s regard for His peopleI. The nature of God’s declaration respecting Himself, “I will set Mine eves upon them for good.”

1. This denotes—(1) His omniscience over them (Job_34:21, compared with 31:4).(2) His providence for them (2Ch_16:9).(3) His grace to save them (Rom_8:29).

2. It implies—(1) Divine personality—“For I” (Eze_34:11).

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(2) Divine attention—“Will set Mine eyes” (Psa_32:8).(3) Personal affection—“Upon them” (Eze_16:5-6).(4) Great kindness—“For their good” (Isa_54:8).

II. A description of the deliverance here declared, “I will bring them into this land”1. Here we have the idea of distance (Eph_2:17).2. How He brings them back.

(1) By the death of His Son (Rev_5:9).(2) By the obedience of His Son (Rom_5:19).(3) By virtue of His intercession (Heb_7:25).

3. This is—(1) A rich land.(2) A large land.(3) A peaceful land.(4) A land of security.

III. The blessings designed fob them on their return.1. Negatively “Not pull them down.”

(1) Not condemn them (Rom_8:1).(2) Not visit their sins upon them (Heb_8:12).

2. Positively—“I will build them up.”(1) The foundation of the building (1Co_3:11).(2) The dimensions (Rom_11:5).(3) The materials (Eph_2:1).(4) The cement by which this building is united (Col_2:2-3).(5) The instruments employed in building (2Co_4:7).

3. These plants had been—(1) Fruitless.(2) Cumberers.(3) Injurious. Yet God did not pluck them up.

4. But He transplanted them to a superior soil: “I will plant them.”(1) In a delightful situation (Psa_48:2).(2) In a good and fertile soil (Psa_1:3).(3) Where there is plenty of sun and rain (Psa_84:11).

IV. The results of all this.

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1. “And I will give them a heart to know Me.”(1) As a gracious God.(2) A covenant-keeping God.(3) A faithful God.(4) A mighty God.(5) And a God of salvation to His people.

2. “And they shall be My people.” As proved by their—(1) Studying the Bible.(2) Offering up prayers and praises.(3) Attendance on His house.(4) Living to God.(5) And simply believing on Christ.

3. “And I will be their God.”(1) By ruling in their understandings.(2) Subduing their wills.(3) And living in their hearts.

4. “For they shall return unto Me with their whole heart.”(1) Positively-Nothing shall prevent them, for “they shall” return.(2) Cordially—Their “heart” shall be delighted in returning.(3) Personality—Each and all shall return in the same person, “unto Me.”(4) Dissatisfaction—They return from all things sinful to God. (T. B. Baker.)

I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the Lord.—Heart-knowledge of GodBy this great promise of the text is not merely meant that God will lead the converted to know that there is a God, because that may be known without s new heart. Any man possessed of reason may know that there is a Supreme Being, who created all things and preserves the universe in existence. The text promises that the favoured ones shall know that God to be Jehovah. Man fashions for himself a god after his own liking; he makes to himself, if not out of wood or stone, yet out of what he calls his own consciousness, or his cultured thought, a deity to his taste, who will not be too severe with his iniquities, or deal out strict justice to the impenitent. The Holy Spirit, however, when He illuminates the mind, leads us to see that Jehovah is God, and beside Him there is none else. He teaches His people to know that the God of heaven and earth is the God d the Bible, a God whose attributes are completely balanced, mercy attended by justice, love accompanied by holiness, grace arrayed in truth, and power linked with tenderness. When the heart is content to believe in God as He is revealed, and no longer goes about to fashion a deity for itself according to its own fancies and notions, it is a hopeful sign.

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The main stress of the promise lies, however, in this: “I will give them a heart to know ME”; that is, not merely to know that I am, and that I am Jehovah, but to have a personal knowledge of Myself. It is not enough to know that our Creator is the Jehovah of the Bible, and that He is perfect in character, and glorious beyond thought; but to know God we must have perceived Him, we must have spoken to Him, we must have been made at peace with Him, we must have lifted up our heart to Him, and received communications from Him. If you know the Lord your secret is with Him, and His secret is with you; He has manifested Himself unto you as He does not unto the world. He must have made Himself known unto you by the mysterious influences of His Spirit, and because of this you know Him. I the seat of this knowledge “I will give them a heart to know Me.” Observe that it is not said, “I will give them a head to know Me.” The first and primary impediment to man’s knowledge of God lies in the affections The heart is the seat of the blindness; there lies the darkness which beclouds the whole mind. Hence to the heart the light must come, and to the heart that light is promised.1. I understand by the fact that the knowledge of God here promised lies in the heart, first, that God renews the heart so that it admires the character of God. The understanding perceives that God is just, powerful, faithful, wise, true, gracious, longsuffering, and the like; then the heart being purified admires all these glorious attributes, and adores Him because of them.2. The heart-knowledge promised in the covenant of grace means, however, much more than approval: grace enables the renewed heart to take another step and appropriate the Lord, saying, “O God, Thou art my God, early will I seek Thee.” All the saved ones cry, “This God is our God for ever and ever; He shall be our guide even unto death”3. All true knowledge of God is attended by affection for Him.” In spiritual language to. Know God is to love Him. “He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love.” It is the great passion of the renewed soul to glorify God, whom he knows and loves; knowledge without love would be a powerless thing, but God has joined this knowledge and love together in a sacred wedlock, and they can never be put asunder. As we love God we know Him, and as we know Him we love Him. Admiration, appropriation, affection are crowned with adhesion. To know a thing by heart is, in our common talk, to know it thoroughly, Memories of the heart abide when all others depart. A mother’s love, a wife’s fondness, a sweet child’s affection, will come before us even in the last hours of life; when the mind will lose its learning and the hand forget its cunning, the dear names of our beloved ones will linger on our lips; and their sweet faces will be before us even when our eyes are dim with the shadow of approaching death. If we can sing, “O God, my heart is fixed, my heart is fixed,” then the knowledge which it possesses will never be taken away from it.

II. The necessity of this knowledge.1. To know God is a needful preparation for every other true knowledge, because the Lord is the centre of the universe, the basis, the pillar, the essential force, the all in all, the fulness of all things. You may learn the doctrines of the Bible, but you do not know them truly till you know the God of the doctrines. You may understand the precepts in the letter of them, and the promises in their outward wording, but neither precept nor promise do you truly know until you know the God from whose lips they fell. The ancient sage said, “Man, know thyself.” He spake well, but even for this man must first know his God. I venture to say that no man rightly knows himself

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till he knows his God, because it is by the light and purity of God that we see our own darkness and sinfulness.2. The knowledge of God is necessary to any real peace of mind. Suppose a man to be in the world and feel that he is right every way except with regard to God, and as to Him he knows nothing. Hear him say, “I go about the world and see many faces which I can recognise, and I perceive many friends upon whom I can trust, but there is a God somewhere, and I know nothing at all about Him. Whether He be my friend or my foe I know not.” If thoughtful and intelligent he must suffer unrest in his spirit, because he will say to himself, “Suppose this God should turn out to be a just God, and I should be a breaker of His laws! What a peril hangs over me. How is it possible for me to be at peace till this dreadful ignorance is removed?” He is the God of peace, and there can be no peace till the soul knows Him.3. That this knowledge of God is necessary is clear, for how could it be possible for a man to have spiritual life and yet not to know God? If you do not know Him you are not a partaker of His grace, but you abide in darkness Into His heaven you can never enter till He has given you a heart to know Him; do not forget this warning, or trifle with it.

III. The excellency of this knowledge.1. One of the first effects of knowing God in the soul is that it turns out our idols. God so enamours the soul of the converted man, so engrosses every spiritual faculty, that he cannot endure an idol, however dear in former times; and if perchance in some back-sliding moment an earthly love intrudes, it is because the man has withdrawn his eye from the splendour of the Deity.2. The second good effect of the knowledge of God is that it creates faith in the soul; to prove which I might give a great many texts, but one will suffice (Psa_9:10): “They that know Thy Name will put their trust in Thee.” We cannot trust an unknown God, but when He reveals Himself to us by His Spirit, then to trust Him is no longer difficult; it is, indeed, inevitable.3. This knowledge of God creates good works also (1Jn_2:3). A heart to know the Lord begets and nurtures every virtue and every grace, and is the basis of the noblest character, the food which feeds grace till it matures into glory.4. To know God has over us a transforming power. Remember how the apostle writes (2Co_3:18). Every thought which crosses the mind affects it for the better or the worse, every glance is moulding us, every wish fashions the character. A sight of God is the most wonderfully sanctifying influence that can be conceived of. Know God, and you will grow to be like Him.5. The knowledge of God causes us to praise Him. “In Judah is God known; His name is great in Israel.” It is not possible for us to have low thoughts of Him, or to give forth mean utterances concerning Him, or to act in a miserly way towards His cause, when we practically know Him.6. The knowledge of God brings comfort, and that is a very desirable thing in a world of trouble. What saith the Psalmist? “God is known in her palaces for a refuge.”7. To know God also brings a man great honour. “Because he hath set his love upon Me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because e hath known My name.” Think of it—“set on high,” and set on high by the Lord Himself, and all as the

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result of knowing the name of the Lord.8. The man who knows the Lord will have usefulness given him (2Co_2:14). We cannot teach others of things which we do not know ourselves. If we have no savour in us there cannot be a savour coming out of us. We shall only be a drag upon the Church in any position if we are destitute of the knowledge of God in Christ Jesus; but if we are filled with a knowledge of Christ, then the sweet savour of His name will pour forth from us as perfume from the flowers.

IV. The source of this knowledge. None but the Creator can give a man a new heart, the change is too radical for any other hand. It would be hard to give a new eye, or a new arm, but a new heart is still more out of the question. The Lord Himself must do it.1. It is evidently a work of pure grace. He freely gives to whomsoever He wills, according to His own declaration, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.”2. It is evidently a work which is possible. All things are possible to God, and He says, “I will give it to them.” He does not speak of it as a blessing desirable, but unattainable; on me contrary He says, “I will give them a heart to know Me”3. It is a work which the Lord has covenanted to do (Hos_2:19; Jer_31:32-34). (C. H. Spurgeon.)

A believing knowledge of GodThe manner of knowing the difference between believers and unbelievers as to knowledge, is not as much in the matter of their knowledge as in the manner of knowing. Unbelievers, some of them, may know more and be able to say more of God, His perfections and will, than many believers; but they know nothing as they ought, nothing in a right manner, nothing spiritually and savingly, nothing with a holy, heavenly light. The-excellency of a believer is not that he hath a large apprehension of things, but that what he doth apprehend, which may perhaps be very little, he sees it in the light of the Spirit of God, in a saving, soul-transforming light: and this is that which gives us communion with God, and not prying thoughts, or curious raised notions. (J. Owen.)

To know God-a new, a gladdening experienceA touching story is told of the child of a French painter. The little girl lost her sight in infancy, and her blindness was supposed to be incurable. A famous oculist in Paris, however: performed an operation on her eyes and restored her sight. Her mother had long been dead, and her father had been her only friend and companion, when she was told that her blindness could be cured, her one thought was that she could see him; and when the cure was complete, and the bandages were removed, she ran to him, and, trembling, pored over his features, shutting her eyes now and then, and passing her fingers over his face, as if to make sure that it was he. The father had a noble head and presence, and his every look and motion were watched by his daughter with the keenest delight. For the first time his constant tenderness and care seemed real to her. If he caressed her, or even looked upon her kindly, it brought tears to her eyes. “To think,” she cried, holding his hand close in hers, “that I had this father so many years and never knew him!”

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They shall return unto life with their whole heart.The whole heart must be given to GodSuppose a mother gave her child a beautiful flower-plant in bloom, and told her to carry it to a sick friend. The child takes it away, and when she reaches the friend’s door she plucks off one leaf and gives it to her, keeping the plant herself. Has she obeyed her mother’s command? Then afterwards, once a day, she plucks off another leaf, or a bud, or a flower, and takes it to the friend, still retaining the plant. Did she obey the command of her mother? Nothing but the giving of the whole plant could fulfil the mother’s direction. Now, is not that a simple illustration of what we give to God? He commands us to love Him with all our heart and with all our being, and we pluck off a little leaf of love now sad then, a little bud or flower of affection, or one cluster of fruit from the bending branches, and give to Him; and we call that obeying. (J. R. Miller.).

7 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 all their heart.

CLARKE, "They shall be my people - I will renew my covenant with them, for they will return to me with them whole heart.

GILL, "And I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the Lord,.... God, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abundant in goodness and truth, pardoning iniquity, transgression, and sin; the unchangeable Jehovah; the everlasting I AM; a covenant keeping God; faithful and true to his promises; able and willing to perform them; and does all things well and wisely; and was their Lord and God. This knowledge designs not the first knowledge of the Lord, but an increase of it; and not head knowledge, but heart knowledge; a knowledge of God, joined with love and affection to him, high esteem, and approbation of him; and including communion with him, and an open profession and acknowledgment of him: and it is an appropriating knowledge also; a knowing him for themselves, and as their own; and such a knowledge or heart to know the Lord is a pure gift of his, and without which none can have it: and it may be

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observed, that in captivity it was given them; afflictions were the means of it; and happy it is when hereby men come to have a knowledge of God, and to be better acquainted with him, Psa_92:12; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God; that is, it shall appear that they are so, by the above blessings of grace and goodness bestowed upon them; the Lord hereby owning them for his people, and they hereby coming to know that he is their God: for, or "when" (e). they shall return unto me with their whole heart; affectionately, sincerely, and unfeignedly. It supposes that they had backslidden from God, his ways and worship; but now should return by sincere repentance to him, and to his worship, and obedience to his commands; so the Targum, "for they shall return to my worship with their whole heart;'' all this will have an entire accomplishment in the latter day, when the Jews will be converted and turn to the Lord, and fear him and his goodness.

HENRY, "He engages to prepare them for these temporal mercies which he designed for them by bestowing spiritual mercies upon them, Jer_24:7. It is this that will make their captivity be for their good; this shall be both the improvement of their affliction and their qualification for deliverance. When our troubles are sanctified to us, then we may be sure that they will end well. Now that which is promised is, [1.] That they should be better acquainted with God; they should learn more of God by his providences in Babylon than they had learned by all his oracles and ordinances in Jerusalem, thanks to divine grace, for, if that had not wrought mightily upon them in Babylon, they would for ever have forgotten God. It is here promised, I will give them, not so much a head to know me, but a heart to know me, for the right knowledge of God consists not in notion and speculation, but in the convictions of the practical judgment directing and governing the will and affections. A good understanding have all those that do his commandments, Psa_111:10. Where God gives a sincere desire and inclination to know him he will give that knowledge. It is God himself that gives a heart to know him, else we should perish for ever in our ignorance. [2.] That they should be entirely converted to God, to his will as their rule, his service as their business, and his glory as their end: They shall return to me with their whole heart. God himself undertakes for them that they shall; and, if he turn us, we shall be turned. This follows upon the former; for those that have a heart to know God aright will not only turn to him, but turn with their whole heart; for those that are either obstinate in their rebellion, or hypocritical in their religion, may truly be said to be ignorant of God. [3.] That thus they should be again taken into covenant with God, as much to their comfort as ever: They shall be my people, and I will be their God. God will own them, as formerly, for his people, in the discoveries of himself to them, in his acceptance of their services, and in his gracious appearances on their behalf; and they shall have liberty to own him for their God in their prayers to him and their expectations from him. Note, Those that have backslidden from God, if they do in sincerity return to him, are admitted as freely as any to all the

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privileges and comforts of the everlasting covenant, which is herein well-ordered, that every transgression in the covenant does not throw us out of covenant, and that afflictions are not only consistent with, but flowing from, covenant-love.2. Here is the moral of the bad figs. Zedekiah and his princes and partizans yet remain in the land, proud and secure enough, Eze_11:3. Many had fled into Egypt for shelter, and they thought they had shifted well for themselves and their own safety, and boasted that though therein they had gone contrary to the command of God yet they had acted prudently for themselves. Now as to both these, that looked so scornfully upon those that had gone into captivity, it is here threatened, (1.) That, whereas those who were already carried away were settled in one country, where they had the comfort of one another's society, though in captivity, these should be dispersed and removed into all the kingdoms of the earth, where they should have no joy one of another. (2.) That, whereas those were carried captives for their good, these should be removed into all countries for their hurt. Their afflictions should be so far from humbling them that they should harden them, not bring them nearer to God, but set them at a greater distance from him. (3.) That, whereas those should have the honour of being owned of God in their troubles, these should have the shame of being abandoned by all mankind: In all places whither I shall drive them they shall be a reproach and a proverb. “Such a one is as false and proud as a Jew” - “Such a one is as poor and miserable as a Jew.” All their neighbours shall make a jest of them, and of the calamities brought upon them. (4.) That, whereas those should return to their own land, never to see it more, and it shall be of no avail to them to plead that it was the land God gave to their fathers, for they had it from God, and he gave it to them upon condition of their obedience. (5.) That, whereas those were reserved for better times, these were reserved for worse; wherever they are removed the sword, and famine, and pestilence, shall be sent after them, shall soon overtake them, and, coming with commission so to do, shall overcome them. God has variety of judgments wherewith to prosecute those that fly from justice; and those that have escaped one may expect another, till they are brought to repent and reform.Doubtless this prophecy had its accomplishment in the men of that generation yet, because we read not of any such remarkable difference between those of Jeconiah's captivity and those of Zedekiah's, it is probable that this has a typical reference to the last destruction of the Jews by the Romans, in which those of them that believed were taken care of, but those that continued obstinate in unbelief were driven into all countries for a taunt and a curse, and so they remain to this day.

JAMISON, "(Jer_30:22; Jer_31:33; Jer_32:38). Their conversion from idolatry to the one true God, through the chastening effect of the Babylonish captivity, is here expressed in language which, in its fullness, applies to the more complete conversion hereafter of the Jews, “with their whole heart” (Jer_29:13), through the painful discipline of their present dispersion. The source of their conversion is here stated to be God’s prevenient grace.

for they shall return — Repentance, though not the cause of pardon, is its invariable accompaniment: it is the effect of God’s giving a heart to know Him.

CALVIN, "Here is added the main benefit, that God would not only restore the 50

captives, that they might dwell in the land of promise, but would also change them inwardly; for except God gives us a conviction as to our own sins, and then leads us by his Spirit to repentance, whatever benefit he may bestow on us, they will only conduce to our greater ruin. The Prophet has hitherto spoken of the alleviation of punishment, as though he had said, “God will stretch forth his hand to restore his people to their own country.” Then the remission of punishment is what has been hitherto promised; but now the Prophet speaks of a much more excellent favor, that God would not only mitigate punishment, but that he would also inwardly change and reform their hearts, so that they would not only return to their own country, but would also become a true Church, a name of which they had vainly boasted. For though they had been chosen to be a peculiar people, yet, as they had departed from true religion, they were only a Church in name. But now God promises that he would bring them, not only to enjoy temporal and fading blessings, but also eternal salvation, for they would truly fear and serve him.And this is what we ought carefully to observe, for the more bountiful God is towards men, the more is his vengeance kindled by ingratitude. What, then, would it avail us to abound in all good things, except we had evidences of God’s paternal favor towards us? But when we regard this end, that God testifies to us that he is our Father by his bounty towards us, we then make a right use of all his blessings; and God’s benefits cannot conduce to our salvation except we regard them in this light. Hence Jeremiah, after having spoken of the people’s restoration, justly exalts this favor above everything else, that the people would repent, so that they would not only fully partake of all the blessings they could expect, but would also worship God in sincerity and truth.Now, God says that he would give them a heart to know him The word heart is to be taken here for the mind or understanding, as it means often in Hebrew. It, indeed, means frequently the seat of the affections, and also the soul of man, as including reason or understanding and will. But though the heart is taken often for the seat of the affections, it is yet applied to designate the other part of the soul, according to these words,“Hitherto God has not given thee a heart to understand.” (Deuteronomy 29:4)The Latins sometimes take it in this sense, according to what Cicero shews when he quotes these words of Ennius, “Catus AElius Sextus was a man remarkable in understanding.” (Egregie cordatus; Cic. 1 Tuscul.) Then, in this passage, the word heart is put for the light of the understanding. Yet another thing must be stated, that a true knowledge of God is not, as they say, imaginary, but is ever connected with a right feeling.From the words of the Prophet we learn that repentance is the peculiar gift of God. Had Jeremiah said only that they who had been previously driven by madness into ruin, would return to a sane mind, he might have appeared as one setting up free-will and putting conversion in the power of man himself, according to what the

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Papists hold, who dream that we can turn to either side, to good as well as to evil; and thus they imagine that we can, after having forsaken God, of ourselves turn to him. But the Prophet clearly shews here, that it is God’s peculiar gift; for what God claims for himself, he surely does not take away from men, as though he intended to deprive them of any right which may belong to them, according to what the Pelagians hold, who seem to think that God appears almost envious when he declares that man’s conversion is in his power; but this is nothing less than a diabolical madness. It is, then, enough for us to know, that what God claims for himself is not taken away from men, for it is not in their power.Since, then, he affirms that he would give them a heart to understand, we hence learn that men are by nature blind, and also that when they are blinded by the devil, they cannot return to the right way, and that they cannot be otherwise capable of light than by having God to illuminate them by his Spirit. We then see that man, from the time he fell, cannot rise again until God stretches forth his hand not only to help him, (as the Papists say, for they dare not claim to themselves the whole of repentance, but they halve it between themselves and God,) but even to do the whole work from the beginning to the end; for God is not called the helper in repentance, but the author of it. God, then, does not say, “I will help them, so that when they raise up their eyes to me, they shall be immediately assisted;” no, he does not say this; but what he says is, “I will give them a heart to understand.” And as understanding or knowledge is the main thing in repentance, it follows that man remains wholly under the power of the devil, and is, as it were, his slave, until God draws him forth from his miserable bondage. In short, we must maintain, that as soon as the devil draws us from the right way of salvation, nothing can come to our minds but what sinks us more and more in ruin, until God interposes, and thus restore us when thinking of no such thing.This passage also shews, that we cannot really turn to God until we acknowledge him to be the Judge; for until the sinner sets himself before God’s tribunal, he will never be touched with the feeling of true repentance. Let us then know that the door of repentance is then opened to us, when God constrains us to look to him. At the same time there is more included in the term Jehovah than the majesty of God, for he assumes this principle, which ought to have been sufficiently known to the whole people, that he was the only true God who had chosen for himself the seed of Abraham, who had published the Law by Moses, who had made a covenant with the posterity of Abraham. There is then no doubt but that the Prophet meant that when the Jews became illuminated, they would be convinced of what they had forgotten, that is, that they had departed from the only true God. This mode of speaking then means the same as though he had said, “I will open their eyes, that they may at length acknowledge that they are apostates, and be thus humbled when made sensible how grievous was their impiety in forsaking me the fountain of living waters.”He afterwards adds, that they should be to him a people, and that he in his turn would be to them a God; for they would return to him with the whole heart By these

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words the Prophet shews more clearly what he had before referred to, that God’s blessings would be then altogether salutary when they regarded their giver. As long then as we regard only the blessings of God, our insensibility produces this effect, that the more bountiful he is towards us, the more culpable we become. But when we regard God’s bounty and paternal kindness towards us, we then really enjoy his blessings. This is the meaning of the Prophet’s words when he says,“I shall be to you a God, and ye shall be to me a people.”What this mode of speaking means has been stated elsewhere.Though God rules the whole world, he yet declares that he is the God of the Church; and the faithful whom he has adopted, he favors with this high distinction, that they are his people; and he does this that they may be persuaded that there is safety in him, according to what is said by Habakkuk,“Thou art our God, we shall not die.” (Habakkuk 1:12.)And of this sentence Christ himself is the best interpreter, when he says, that he is not the God of the dead, but of the living, (Luke 20:38;) he proves by the testimony of Moses, that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, though dead, were yet alive. How so; because God would not have declared that he was their God, were they not living to him. Since then he regards them as his people, he at the same time shews that there is life for them laid up in him. In short, we see that there is here promised by God not a restoration for a short time, but he adds the hope of eternal life and salvation; for the Jews were not only to return to their own country, when the time came to leave Chaldea, and a liberty granted them to build their own city; but they were also to become the true Church of God.And the reason is also added, Because they will return to me, he says, with their whole heart He repeats what we have already observed, that they would be wise (cordatos) and intelligent, whereas they had been for a long time stupid and foolish, and the devil had so blinded them, that they were not capable of receiving sound doctrine. But these two things, the reconciliation of God with men and repentance, are necessarily connected together, yet repentance ought not to be deemed as the cause of pardon or of reconciliation, as many falsely think who imagine that men deserve pardon because they repent. It is indeed true that God is never propitious to us, except when we turn to him; but the connection, as it has been already stated, is not such that repentance is the cause of pardon, nay, this very passage clearly shews that repentance itself depends on the grace and mercy of God. Since this is true, it follows that men are anticipated by God’s gratuitous kindness.We hence further learn, that God is not otherwise propitious to us than according to his good pleasure, so that the cause of all is only in himself. Whence is it that a sinner returns to the right way and seeks God from whom he has departed? Is it because he is moved to do so of himself? Nay, but because God illuminates his mind

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and touches his heart, or rather renews it. How is it that God illuminates him who has become blind? Surely for this we can find no other cause than the gratuitous mercy of God. When God then is propitious to men, so as to restore them to himself, does he not anticipate them by his grace? How then can repentance be called the cause of reconciliation, when it is its effect? It cannot be at the same time its effect and cause.We ought therefore carefully to notice the context here, for though the Prophet says that the Jews, when they returned, would be God’s people, because they would turn to him with their whole heart, he yet had before explained whence this turning or conversion would proceed, even because God would shew them mercy. They who pervert such passages according to their own fancies, are not so acquainted with Scripture as to know that there is a twofold reconciliation of men with God: He is first reconciled to men in a hidden manner, for when they despise him, he anticipates them by his grace, and illuminates their minds and renews their hearts. This first reconciliation is what they do not understand. But there is another reconciliation, known by experience, even when we feel that the wrath of God towards us is pacified, and are indeed made sensible of this by the effects. To this the reference is made in these words,“Turn ye to me, and I will turn to you,” (Zechariah 1:3)that is, “I appear severe and rigid to you; but whence is this? even because ye cease not to provoke my wrath; return to me, and you shall find me ready to spare you.” God therefore did not then first begin to pardon sinners, when he does them good, but as he had been previously pacified, hence he turns them to himself, and afterwards shews that he is really reconciled to them.By the whole heart, is intimated sincerity or integrity, as by a double heart, or a heart and a heart, is signified dissimulation. It is certain that no one turns to God in such a manner that he puts off all the affections of the flesh, that he is renewed at once in God’s image, so that he is freed from every stain. Such a conversion is never found in man. But when the Scripture speaks of the whole heart, it is in contrast with dissimulation;“with my whole heart have I sought thee,” says David; “I have hid thy words and will keep them: I have prayed for thy favor; I will ask,” etc., (Psalms 119:10;)“They will seek me,” as Moses says, “with their whole heart.”(Deuteronomy 4:29; Deuteronomy 10:12)David did not divest himself of everything sinful, for he confesses in many places that he was laboring under many sins; but the clear meaning is, that what God requires is integrity. In short, the whole heart is integrity, that is when we deal not hypocritically with God, but desire from the heart to give up ourselves to him.

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As we have before refuted the error of those who think that repentance is the cause why God becomes reconciled to us, so now we must know that God will not be propitious to us except we seek him. For there is a mutual bond of connection, so that God anticipates us by his grace, and also calls us to himself; in short, he draws us, and we feel in ourselves the working of the Holy Spirit. We do not indeed turn, unless we are turned; we do not turn through our own will or efforts, but it is the Holy Spirit’s work. Yet he who under pretext of grace indulges himself and cares not for God, and seeks not repentance, cannot flatter himself that he is one of God’s people; for as we have said, repentance is necessary. It follows, — but I cannot to-day finish this part, for he speaks of the badness of the figs, and of the remnant which still remained. ELLICOTT, " (7) I will give them an heart to know me . . .—Of this also the history of the return gives at least a partial proof. Whatever other faults might be growing up, they never again fell into the apostasy from the true faith in God, which up to the time of the exile had been their besetting sin.They shall be my people . . .—The prophet clearly remembers and reproduces the promise of Hosea 2:23.TRAPP, "Jeremiah 24:7 And I will give them an heart to know me, that I [am] the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.Ver. 7. And I will give them an heart to know me.] (a) This was better than all the rest, scil., a sanctified use of their afflictions. This we should highly prize, and pray for.And they shall be my people.] This falling out of lovers shall but be a renewing of love between us.For they shall return unto me.] God must sometimes whip his people to duty, and gather them from evil, as well as entice them, ut uvae dulces sint et non labruseae. PETT, "Jeremiah 24:7“And I will give them a heart to know me, that I am YHWH, and they will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with their whole heart.”And what was more He would give them a heart to know Him, and to really appreciate that He really was YHWH, so that they would be His people and He would be their God (compare Jeremiah 31:33-34; Hosea 2:23). There would be a full restoration of the covenant, and they would return to Him with their whole heart. And as we know from later records this was on the whole what happened. They became established in the land once again and did experience revival a number of times, so that at times they did genuinely respond to God with all their hearts. This

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then resulted finally in their being prepared by John the Baptist for the coming of Jesus Christ into the world, with continually among them a strong godly remnant (consider all those mentioned in respect of the birth of Jesus). It finally came into full fruition in the true company of believers after Pentecost.

8 “‘But like the bad figs, which are so bad they cannot be eaten,’ says the Lord, ‘so will I deal with Zedekiah king of Judah, his officials and the survivors from Jerusalem, whether they remain in this land or live in Egypt.

BARNES, "Jer_24:8That dwell in the land of Egypt - Neither those carried captive with Jehoahaz into Egypt, nor those who fled there, are to share in these blessings. The new life of the Jewish nation is to be the work only of the exiles in Babylon.CLARKE, "So will I give Zedekiah - I will treat these as they deserve. 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.

GILL, "And as the evil figs, which cannot be eaten, they are so evil,.... Here follows an explication of the evil figs, and an application of them to the wicked Jews: surely thus saith the Lord, so will I give Zedekiah the king of Judah; who was then the reigning king of Judah, Jeconiah's father's brother; whom the king of Babylon had made king in his stead, and changed his name from Mattaniah to Zedekiah, 2Ki_24:17; him the Lord threatens to give up to ruin and destruction, or to deliver into the hands of the enemy: and his princes, and the residue of them, that remain in this land; the rest of the inhabitants of Jerusalem that continued in the land of Judea, and were not carried captive: and them that dwell in the land of Egypt; who had fled thither for safety upon the

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invasion of their land, and besieging their city; all these being like to the bad figs, exceeding evil and wicked, are threatened to be delivered into the hands of their enemies, though they might think themselves safe and secure where they were.JAMISON, "in ... Egypt — Many Jews had fled for refuge to Egypt, which was

leagued with Judea against Babylon.K&D 8-10, "And as one deals with the bad uneatable figs, i.e., throws them away, sowill the Lord deliver up to ignominious ruin Zedekiah with his princes and the remainder of the people, both those still staying in the land and those living in Egypt. This, the fate awaiting them, is more fully described in Jer_24:9 and Jer_24:10. In Jer_24:8 the "yea, thus saith," is inserted into the sentence by way of repetition of the "thus

saith," Jer_24:5. ֵּכן is resumed and expanded by ּוְנַתִּתים in Jer_24:9. The "princes" are Zedekiah's courtiers. Those in Egypt are they who during the war had fled thither to hide themselves from judgment. From the beginning of Jer_24:9 to ָהָאֶרץ is verbally the same as Jer_15:4, save that ְלָרָעה is added to make more marked the contrast to ָּבּה ,ְלטJer_24:5 - the evil, namely, that is done to them. Hitz., Ew., Umbr., Gr., following the lxx, delete this word, but without due cause. The further description of the ill-usage in "for a reproach," etc., is based on Deu_28:37; and is intensified by the addition of "and for an object of cursing," to show that in their case the curse there recorded will be fulfilled. From the last words, according to which disgrace will light on them in all the lands they are driven into, it appears that captivity will fall to the lot of such as are yet to be found in the land. But captivity involves new hostile invasions, and a repeated siege and capture of Jerusalem; during which many will perish by sword, famine, and plague. Thus and by deportation they shall be utterly rooted out of the land of their fathers. Cf. Jer_29:17., where Jeremiah repeats the main idea of this threatening.

CALVIN, "God, after having promised to deal kindly with the captives, now declares that he would execute heavier punishment on King Zedekiah, and the whole people who yet remained in their own country. We have stated why God exhibited this vision to the Prophet, even that he might support their minds who saw nothing but grounds of despair, and that also, on the other hand, he might correct their pride who flattered themselves in their own lot, because God had deferred his vengeance as to them. Then the Prophet, having given comfort to the miserable exiles, now speaks against Zedekiah and his people, who boasted that God was propitious to them, and that they had not only been fortunate, but also wise in continuing in their own country.He then says that Zedekiah and his princes, and all who remained in Judea, were like the bad figs, which could not be eaten on account of their bitterness. I have said that this is to be referred to punishment and not to guilt. They had sinned, I allow, most grievously; but we are to regard the design of the Prophet. The meaning then is, that though the condition of those who had been driven into captivity was for the present harder, yet God would deal more severely with those who remained,

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because he had for a time spared them, and they did not repent, but hardened themselves more and more in their wickedness.Now we know that Zedekiah was set over the kingdom of Judah, when Jeconiah surrendered himself to Nebuchadnezzar: he was the uncle of Jeconiah, and reigned eleven years; and during that time he ought to have been at least wise at the expense of another. For Eliakim, who was also called Jehoiakim, had been chastised, and that not only once; but Nebuchadnezzar, after having spoiled the temple, rendered him tributary to himself, on his return to Chaldea. At length, after having been often deceived by him, he became extremely displeased with him; and his son, who had reigned with his father, three months after his death, voluntarily surrendered himself into the power and will of the conqueror. Mathaniah afterwards reigned, of whom the Prophet speaks here. So, he says, will I render (125) Zedekiah (called previously Mathaniah) the king of Judah, and his princes, and the remnants of Jerusalem, who remain in this land, (for the greater part had been led into exile,) and those who dwell in the land of Egypt, for many had fled thither; and we know that they were confederates with the Egyptians, and that through a vain confidence in them they often rebelled.And this was also the reason why the prophets so sharply reproved them: they relied on the help of Egypt, and took shelter under its protection. When, therefore, they found themselves exposed to the will of their enemies, they fled into Egypt. But Nebuchadnezzar afterwards, as we shall see, conquered Egypt also. Thus it happened that they were only for a short time beyond the reach of danger. But as fugitive slaves, when recovered, are afterwards treated more severely by their masters, so also the rage of King Nebuchadnezzar became more violent against them. It now follows —8.But like the bad figs, which cannot be eaten, they being so bad, (yea, thus saith Jehovah,) so will I make Zedekiah, etc.— Ed. COFFMAN, "REGARDING THE BAD FIGS"And as the bad figs that cannot be eaten, they are so bad, surely thus saith Jehovah, So will I give up Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the residue of Jerusalem, that remain in the land, and them that dwell in the land of Egypt, I will even give them up to be tossed to and fro among all the kingdoms of the earth for evil; to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places whither I shall drive them. And I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, among them, till they be consumed from off the land that I gave unto them and to their fathers.""The bad figs ..." (Jeremiah 24:8) These are identified here as Zedekiah the king of Judah and his princes, along with all of the rest of the people who remained behind

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in Judah after the deportation of the first wave of captives. Note also that even the Jews who had fled to Egypt or other nations are also included among the bad figs. Only the people who suffered the discipline of the captivity would be used by God in his future plans for Israel, and not all of them, but only those who with a whole heart would repent and turn to the true God. "Green's word on the bad figs: 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."[7]These verses, of course, prophecy another invasion and destruction of Jerusalem, which indeed came to pass about a decade after the first invasion. There would be other captives to join their countrymen in Babylon; and the Jews would be totally rooted out of the land that God had given to them and to their fathers."Among all the kingdoms of the earth ..." (Jeremiah 24:9) This is a reiteration of the Mosaic curse of Deuteronomy 28:25,37, the fulfillment of which is witnessed by a Jewish settlement in practically every city on the face of the earth.There is, of course, far more in this prophecy than the transport of Jews to Babylon. "The prophecy of Jeremiah 24:10 was partly fulfilled in the fall of Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar, but more so in the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans under Vespasian and Titus in A.D. 70."[8] It was upon that occasion that the status of racial Israel, already long reduced, was at last terminated, as regards any racial consideration whatever having any bearing whatever upon who is saved or not saved.ELLICOTT, "(8) And them that dwell in the land of Egypt.—These were, in fact, such as had been carried into captivity with Jehoahaz by Pharaoh-nechoh (see Note on Jeremiah 22:11), or had fled thither in order to avoid submission to Nebuchadnezzar, and were settled in Migdol, and Tahpanhes, and Noph. We meet with them later on in Jeremiah 44. For these there was to be no return, no share in the work of restoration. They formed the nucleus of the Jewish population of Egypt, and in course of time (B.C. 150) set up a rival temple at Leontopolis. (See Note on Isaiah 19:19.)TRAPP, "Jeremiah 24:8 And as the evil figs, which cannot be eaten, they are so evil; surely thus saith the LORD, So will I give Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the residue of Jerusalem, that remain in this land, and them that dwell in the land of Egypt:Ver. 8. And as the evil figs.] Zedekiah and his subjects, who were looked upon as the happier, because at home; and derided, likely, Jeconiah and his concaptives as cowards. Sure it is, that they were not bettered by their brethren’s miseries.

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COKE, "Jeremiah 24:8. So will I give Zedekiah, &c.— So will I render Zedekiah, &c. Houbigant.REFLECTIONS.—Though, in general, the prophet's word was rejected by the people, yet there were some who heard it, and to whom it was a savour of life unto life. And though, the nation's iniquities now being full, they fell into the promiscuous ruin, yet even in their captivity God will take care of them, and make even this most afflictive providence work for the good of the sincere.1. The date of the vision is in the beginning of Zedekiah's reign, when Nebuchadnezzar had carried away Jeconiah the king, and the princes of Judah, captives to Babylon, and with them the carpenters and smiths; either to employ them in his own works, or to deprive the captive land of their assistance in making fortifications and weapons of war.2. The vision itself consisted of two baskets of figs, placed before the temple; the one, vile and refuse, which could not be eaten; the other very good. The explication of which the Lord gives him.[1.] The good figs were the captives gone into Babylon: these God promises to regard, to cause their captivity to issue for their good; those who were faithful should be improved in the furnace of affliction, and many who were otherwise till then, should be, through grace, wrought upon and led to repentance by the visitation. In consequence of which, the eyes of his favour should be upon them, they should be again restored and firmly established in their own land; and, better than all temporal good, the Lord engages to enrich them with enlarged spiritual understanding, and to bestow on them the best of blessings; I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the Lord, by experience of his power, grace, and love exerted eminently for them, and exercised richly towards them; and they shall be my people, enjoying his protection, and taken into covenant with him, and I will be their God, their helper and defenders their portion, their exceeding great reward; for they shall return unto me with their whole heart, in simplicity and sincerity, ashamed of their backsliding, and unfeignedly penitent. Note. (1.) The ways of providence are mysterious; what seemed the greatest affliction, proves often in its issue the most substantial blessing. (2.) God's hand is to be acknowledged in all our sufferings; whatever instruments are employed, we must say, I became dumb, and opened not my mouth, for it was thy doing. (3.) If ever we come to the true knowledge of God, we must consider it as the gift of his grace; for without this, we can know nothing, as we ought to know. (4.) Whatever our sins and backslidings have been, whenever through grace we have a heart to return unto him, we may be assured that his arms are still open to receive us.[2.] The evil figs represented the remnant which were left in Jerusalem under Zedekiah, who, though they stood before the temple, yet were much worse than their brethren who had gone into captivity; for not the greatest sinners are always

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the first to suffer; God permits them to stand to fill up the measure of their iniquities, while he corrects his dear children with the scourges of paternal love: but their judgment advances; surely, thus saith the Lord, the decree is gone forth, and the execution of it sure; Zedekiah and his princes, with the residue of Jerusalem, are devoted to destruction; nor should they, who fled to Egypt for shelter, be exempted, since thither the judgments of God should follow them. The sword, the famine, and the pestilence, shall consume them; and those who survive be doomed to a miserable slavery, worse than death; scattered into all lands for their hurt, where they shall have no intercourse to administer friendly consolation to each other; and being hardened, instead of repentant, under their sufferings, their yoke should be made heavy, and their persons despicable and odious; they should be a reproach, a proverb, a taunt, and a curse, in all places whither God would drive them; and this seems to have a reference, not only to their desolations under Nebuchadnezzar, but also to look forward to their last more terrible destruction by the Romans; and the truth of the prediction appears verified this day in that unhappy people, who live under the evident curse of God, and the contempt of all nations whither they are scattered. PETT, "Jeremiah 24:8“And as the bad figs, which cannot be eaten, they are so bad, surely thus says YHWH, So will I give up Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the residue of Jerusalem, who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt,”But with the bad, inedible figs it was to be a very different story. They represented Zedekiah and his clique, together with others both in Jerusalem and in Egypt, who would be ‘given up’ because they were unacceptable. They would not be a part of the restoration. Notice that Egypt was seen to have done them no good.We know very little about settlers in Egypt from Judah around this time, but Egypt had always regularly welcomed refugees from Canaan (they considered that they had a paternal interest in it seeing it as basically their colony), and the Egyptians employed Jewish mercenaries. Thus refugees who were pro-Egyptian sympathisers from both Israel and Judah would probably have fled there at various times during the regular invasions that took place from the north and have found a welcome there. Some would also have gone there with Jehoahaz who would certainly have been accompanied by courtiers and servants in 609 B.C. (2 Kings 23:34). And other refugees would probably have followed when Jehoiakim became Nebuchadrezzar's vassal around 603 BC, and then when Nebuchadrezzar invaded Judah in 598/7 BC.

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9 I will make them abhorrent and an offense to all the kingdoms of the earth, a reproach and a byword, a curse[c] and an object of ridicule, wherever I banish them.

GILL, "And I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth for their hurt,.... Jeconiah and the captives with him were only carried into Babylon; but these should be scattered one from another into the several parts of the world. The former were carried captive for their good, and it issued in that; but these were carried away for their hurt, to the injury of their persons and properties, and without having any effect upon them to the good of their souls: though this might begin to be fulfilled by the seventy years' captivity in Babylon, yet it had a more complete fulfilment in the destruction of this people by the Romans; to which these and the following words seem more particularly to refer: to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places whither I shall drive them; their names to be used as a proverb for their riches ill gotten, their falsehood and tricking; and under the curse of God, and the reproach of man, as they are this day; see Deu_28:37.

JAMISON, "removed, etc. — (Jer_15:4). Calvin translates, “I will give them up to agitation, in all,” etc.; This verse quotes the curse (Deu_28:25, Deu_28:37). Compare Jer_29:18, Jer_29:22; Psa_44:13, Psa_44:14.

CALVIN, "Here the Prophet borrows his words from Moses, in order to secure authority to his prophecy; for the Jews were ashamed to reject Moses, as they believed that the Law came from God: it would at least have been deemed by them an abominable thing to deny credit to the Law. And yet they boldly rejected all the prophets, though they were but faithful interpreters of the Law, as the case is with the Papists of the present day, who, though they dare not deny but that the Scripture contains celestial truth, yet furiously reject what is alleged from it. Similar was the perverseness of the Jews. Hence the prophets, in order to gain more credit to their words, often borrowed their very words from Moses, as though they had recited from a written document what had been dictated to them. For in Deuteronomy and in other places Moses spoke a language of this kind, — that God would give up the people to a concussion or a commotion, for a reproach, for a proverb, for a taunt, to all the nations of the earth. (Deuteronomy 28:37; 1 Kings 9:7.)

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It is then the same as though Jeremiah had said, that the time would at length come when the Jews would find that so many maledictions had not been pronounced in vain by Moses. They no doubt read Moses; but as they were so stupid, no fear, no reverence for God was felt by them, even when he terrified them with such words as these. The Prophet then says, that the time was now near when they should know by experience that God had not in vain threatened them.I will set them for a commotion The verb זוע, zuo, means to move and to be noisy. Many render the noun here “noise,” others “perturbation,” and others, “the shaking of the head;” for we are wont to shake the head in scorn. (126)However this may be, we are to read in connection with this the following words, — that they would be for a reproach, and a terror, and a taunt, and an execration, to all nations It is then said, on account of evil: for the preposition ל , lamed, is to be taken here in different senses: before “commotion,” it means “for;” but here it is causal, “on account of.” The severe and dreadful vengeance of God would be such, that it would move and disturb all nations. He indeed mentions all kingdoms, but the meaning is the same. He then adds reproach, that is, that they would be subjected to the condemnation of all nations. They had refused to submit to God’s judgment, and when he would have made them ashamed for their good, they had wickedly resisted. It was therefore necessary to subject them to the reproach of all people.It is added, for a proverb and for a tale, or as some read, “for a parable and for a proverb.” The word משל, meshel, means a common saying; but here it signifies a scoff, and a similar meaning must be given to, שנינה, shenine, a tale or a fable. By both words he means, that when the heathens wished to describe a most grievous calamity, they would take this example, “Yes, it is all over with the Jews, no nation has become so wretched.” The same view is to be taken of execration; for he intimates that they would become a type and a pattern of a curse, “Yes, may you perish like the Jews; may God execute vengeance on you, as he has done on the Jews.” He then adds, that this would happen to them in all places wherever God would drive them; as though the Prophet had said, that God would not be satisfied with their exile, though that was to be grievous and bitter; but that when driven to distant lands they would become objects of reproach, so that all would point at them with the finger of scorn, accompanied with every mark of reproach, and would be also taking them as an example of execration. He afterwards adds —9.And I will make them a vexation, an evil, To all the kingdoms of the earth, — A reproach and a proverb, A taunt and an execration, In all the places where I shall drive them.The word for “taunt” is rendered in other places “a byword:” it denotes what is sharp and cutting. They were to be objects and subjects of these things. Being a vexation and an evil, or an annoyance to others, they would become objects of reproach and execration, and subjects of proverbs and of taunts. See a note on

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Jeremiah 15:4; vol. 2 — Ed. TRAPP, "Jeremiah 24:9 And I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth for [their] hurt, [to be] a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places whither I shall drive them.Ver. 9. And I will deliver them.] As men throw out naughty figs, rotten apples, or the like. All the figs were carried out, but in diverse baskets, and for diverse purposes.To be a taunt and a curse.] As when they were called in scorn by the heathen Verpi, Apellae, Recutiti, &c., and were noted, as they are still, for a nasty people.PETT, "Jeremiah 24:9“I will even give them up to be tossed to and fro 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 shall drive them.”And these bad figs would be ‘tossed to and fro’ among all the kingdoms of the world (compare Jeremiah 15:4; Jeremiah 29:17-18), with nowhere to call their home, becoming recipients of bad treatment (evil) and as well as becoming a reproach, a living illustration, a taunt and a curse in all the places where YHWH drove them (compare Leviticus 26:36; Deuteronomy 28:37; Deuteronomy 28:65-67; Isaiah 43:28). So even those in Egypt would not find safety or full acceptance. This is in fact a good general overall description of the history of the Jews in general because of their insularity.

10 I will send the sword, famine and plague against them until they are destroyed from the land I gave to them and their ancestors.’”

CLARKE, "I will send the sword - Many of them fell by sword and famine in the war with the Chaldeans, and many more by such means afterwards. The first received their captivity as a correction, and turned to God; the latter still hardened their hearts more and more, and probably very many of them never returned: perhaps they are now

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amalgamated with heathen nations. Lord, how long?

GILL, "And I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, among them,.... Meaning not in other lands, where they should be driven, but while in their own land, by which many should perish; and the rest that escaped these dreadful judgments should be carried captive. The Targum is, "I will send those that kill with the sword, &c.'' till they be consumed from off the land that I gave unto them and to their fathers; so that none of them should be left there to inhabit it, which is now their case; and it is an aggravation of their calamity and punishment, that they are no more the inhabitants of that good land, which was God's gift to them, and to their fathers before them.CALVIN, "He confirms the former verse, — that God would then with extreme rigor punish them, by allowing the city and the inhabitants who remained, to be given up to the will of their enemies. And Jeremiah still speaks as from the mouth of Moses, that his prophecy might be more weighty, and that he might frighten those men who were so refractory. There are here three kinds of punishments which we often meet with, under which are included all other punishments. But as God for the most part punishes the sins of men by pestilence, or by famine, or by war, he connects these three together when his purpose is to include all kinds of punishment.He adds, Until they be consumed from the face of the land; he says not “until they be consumed in the land,” but from the face of it, מעל , mol, from upon it: for the Jews were not consumed in their own country; but he consumed them by degrees elsewhere, so that they gradually pined away: they were driven into exile, and that was their final destruction. (127) What this clause means I have explained in another place.The Prophet adds, which I gave to them and to their fathers. His object here was to shake off from the Jews that foolish confidence with which they were inebriated: for as they had heard of the land in which they dwelt, that it was the rest of God, and as they knew that it had been given to them by an hereditary right, according to what had been promised to their fathers, they thought that it could never be taken away from them. They therefore became torpid in their sins, as though God was bound to them. The Prophet ridicules this folly by saying, that the promise and favor of God would not prevent him from depriving them of the land and of its possession, and from rejecting them as though they were aliens, notwithstanding the fact, that he had formerly adopted them as his children.We now see the meaning of both parts of this vision. For the Prophet wished to alleviate the sorrow of the exiles when he said, that their state at length would be

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better; and so he promised that God would be reconciled to them after having for a time chastised them. Thus it is no small comfort to us when we regard the end; for as the Apostle says to the Hebrews, when we feel the scourges of God, sorrow is a hinderance to a patient suffering, as chastisement is for the present grievous, bitter, and difficult to be endured. (Hebrews 12:11.) It is therefore necessary, if we would patiently submit to God, to have regard to the issue: for until the sinner begins to taste of God’s grace and mercy, he will fret and murmur, or he will be stupid and hardened; and certainly he will receive no comfort. Afterwards the Prophet shews, on the other hand, that though God may spare us for a time, there is yet no reason for us to indulge ourselves, for he will at length make up for the delay by the heaviness of his punishment: the more indulgently he deals with us, the more grievous and dreadful will be his vengeance, when he sees that we have abused his forbearance. Now follows — TRAPP, "Jeremiah 24:10 And I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, among them, till they be consumed from off the land that I gave unto them and to their fathers.Ver. 10. And I will send the sword.] So Jeremiah 14:15; Jeremiah 34:17.PETT, "Jeremiah 24:10“And I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, among them, until they are consumed from off the land which I gave to them and to their fathers.”But meanwhile he would send among them His judgments, sword, famine and pestilence (compare Jeremiah 14:12; Ezekiel 14:21), until they were finally consumed off the land which YHWH had given to them and their fathers, a privilege which they had abused. Thus the final fate of those remaining in Judah under Zedekiah was fixed, and it was not a hopeful one. The future would demonstrate what a motley lot they were.

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