The Good and the Rotten Figs Text: Jeremiah 24:1-3
Introduction: God's Sorting Hat
We live in a sentimental age, an age that has confused the therapeutic with the theological. Our culture wants a God who is endlessly affirming and never discriminating. The modern mind pictures God as a sort of divine participation trophy distributor, where everyone gets a prize simply for showing up. But the God of the Scriptures, the God who actually is, is a God of sharp distinctions. He is constantly sorting, separating the wheat from the chaff, the sheep from the goats, the precious from the vile. And here in Jeremiah, He uses two baskets of figs to drive this point home with agricultural sharpness.
The historical situation is this: Nebuchadnezzar, the pagan king of Babylon, has already come against Jerusalem once. This is around 597 B.C. He has skimmed the cream of the crop, deporting King Jeconiah and the top tier of Judah's society, the officials, craftsmen, and smiths. These are the very people you would need to run a country or rebuild a city. They are now exiles in Babylon. Left behind in Jerusalem is a puppet king, Zedekiah, and a population that is congratulating itself. They look around and think, "Well, we must be the righteous ones. God must be pleased with us, because we are still here, in the land, by the temple. Those poor souls carted off to pagan Babylon are clearly the ones under judgment."
This is the kind of reasoning that always appeals to the carnal man. It is a theology of sight, not of faith. It judges by outward circumstance instead of by the divine Word. It is the same logic that says the prosperous man must be blessed and the suffering man must be cursed. But God is about to turn this entire evaluation on its head. He shows Jeremiah a vision that completely reverses the popular verdict. The ones who look blessed are actually cursed, and the ones who look cursed are the objects of His saving purposes. This is a profound lesson for us. We must learn to see as God sees and to evaluate with His dictionary. God's judgments are not like our judgments. His ways are not our ways. And in this vision of the figs, He is teaching us that the place of safety is not always the place of comfort, and the instrument of His discipline is often the means of His grace.
This passage is a divine object lesson. God does this frequently in Scripture. He uses a potter's wheel, a linen sash, a yoke of wood, and here, two baskets of figs to make His point unforgettable. He is not an abstract philosopher; He is a master teacher, and He knows that a picture is worth a thousand theological treatises, especially to a hard-headed people.
The Text
After Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken away into exile Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the officials of Judah with the craftsmen and smiths from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon, Yahweh showed me: behold, two baskets of figs set before the temple of Yahweh!
One basket had very good figs, like first-ripe figs, and the other basket had very rotten figs which could not be eaten due to rottenness.
Then Yahweh said to me, "What do you see, Jeremiah?" And I said, "Figs, the good figs, very good; and the rotten figs, very rotten, which cannot be eaten due to rottenness."
(Jeremiah 24:1-3 LSB)
The Historical Setting and the Divine Vision (v. 1)
We begin with the context and the vision itself:
"After Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken away into exile Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the officials of Judah with the craftsmen and smiths from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon, Yahweh showed me: behold, two baskets of figs set before the temple of Yahweh!" (Jeremiah 24:1)
The verse begins by grounding us in history. This is not a fairy tale. Real kings, real craftsmen, and a real pagan emperor are involved. And notice the theological point being made, even in the historical setup. Nebuchadnezzar is the actor, but Yahweh is the author. The king of Babylon thinks he is building his empire, but he is merely God's instrument, His servant, as Jeremiah calls him elsewhere (Jer. 25:9). God is sovereign over the affairs of nations. He moves kings like chess pieces on a board. The deportation of Judah's elite was not a political accident; it was a divine appointment. God sent them into exile.
Then, Yahweh shows Jeremiah a vision. The location is significant: "before the temple of Yahweh." The temple was the symbolic heart of the nation, the place where God's presence dwelt. But the people had turned it into a talisman, a good luck charm. They thought that as long as the temple stood, they were safe, regardless of their rampant idolatry and covenant-breaking. By placing these two baskets of figs before the temple, God is making a statement about the two kinds of worshipers, the two kinds of covenant members, who associate with His house. There is a visible church and an invisible church. Not all Israel is Israel. And God is about to show Jeremiah how He distinguishes between them.
The vision is simple: two baskets of figs. Figs were a staple crop in Israel, a symbol of peace and prosperity. To sit under one's own vine and fig tree was the picture of covenant blessing (1 Kings 4:25). So, to use figs in this vision is to speak directly to the issue of who will receive God's blessing and who will not.
The Stark Contrast (v. 2)
Verse 2 describes the condition of the figs in each basket, and the language leaves no room for ambiguity.
"One basket had very good figs, like first-ripe figs, and the other basket had very rotten figs which could not be eaten due to rottenness." (Jeremiah 24:2 LSB)
God does not deal in shades of gray here. There is no basket of mediocre, slightly bruised figs. The distinction is absolute. One basket is not just good; it is "very good," like the "first-ripe figs." First-ripe figs were a delicacy, the best of the harvest, highly prized. They represent that which is pleasing and valuable to God.
The other basket is not just bad; it is "very rotten." The Hebrew emphasizes the point: they are so bad they "could not be eaten due to rottenness." They are useless, disgusting, fit only to be thrown out. This is a picture of utter corruption and worthlessness in the sight of God. There is no middle ground. You are either a good fig or a rotten fig. You are either pleasing to God or you are repulsive to Him.
This is a frontal assault on all forms of religious self-deception. The people left in Jerusalem thought they were the good figs. They had the land, the temple, the king. But God says they are the putrid ones. The exiles in Babylon, stripped of everything, humiliated, and living in a pagan land, thought they were the rotten ones. But God says they are the "very good" figs, the first-ripe fruit of His coming restoration. God's evaluation is completely contrary to human evaluation. This teaches us that hardship is not a sign of God's rejection, and earthly security is not a sign of His favor. Often, it is the other way around. God's furnace of affliction is where He purifies His people, while the ease of Zion is where pride and corruption fester.
The Prophetic Dialogue (v. 3)
God then engages Jeremiah, ensuring the prophet understands what he is seeing.
"Then Yahweh said to me, 'What do you see, Jeremiah?' And I said, 'Figs, the good figs, very good; and the rotten figs, very rotten, which cannot be eaten due to rottenness.'" (Jeremiah 24:3 LSB)
God often asks questions to which He already knows the answer. He does it to draw out a confession, to force the observer to articulate the reality before him. "Adam, where are you?" "What is in your hand, Moses?" And here, "What do you see, Jeremiah?" God wants Jeremiah to own this vision, to see the stark reality with his own eyes and say it with his own mouth.
Jeremiah's response is a simple report of the facts. He doesn't editorialize or soften the language. He repeats the divine description almost verbatim. "Figs, the good figs, very good; and the rotten figs, very rotten." This is the task of the faithful prophet and the faithful preacher. It is not to invent a message, or to tailor God's message to be more palatable. It is simply to declare what God has shown. Our job is to see what God sees and say what God says.
Jeremiah sees the world through God's eyes now. He sees that the exiles, the ones who have been humbled and disciplined, are the hope for the future. They are the remnant through whom God will work. The proud remnant left in Judah, who are clinging to their empty religious forms, are the rotten figs, destined for judgment. This principle is timeless. God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6). The path to exaltation is through humiliation. The way to life is through death. The exiles had been brought to a place of death, the death of their national pride and self-righteousness. And it was there, in that death, that God would plant the seeds of new life.
Conclusion: Which Basket Are You In?
This object lesson from ancient Judah speaks directly to us. The church today is full of two kinds of figs, all sitting before the Lord. From the outside, it can be difficult to tell the difference. They sing the same hymns, they sit in the same pews, they might even say the same creed. But God sees the heart.
The rotten figs are those who trust in their location, their heritage, their religious performance. They are the cultural Christians, the nominal believers. They are still in "Jerusalem," comfortable in their surroundings, but their hearts are far from God. They have a form of godliness but deny its power. They are inedible because their religion is all about them. They are spiritually putrid, and God will not consume them. They are destined for the trash heap of judgment.
The good figs are those who have been humbled. They may look like exiles in this world. They may be afflicted, persecuted, and stripped of earthly comforts. But in that humbling, they have been brought to the end of themselves. They have learned to trust not in their own righteousness, but in the righteousness of Christ alone. Their exile, their hardship, is God's tool "for their good," as the next verses will say. It is the very thing God is using to make them dependent on Him, to give them a heart to know Him. They are the first-ripe fruit, precious to God, and destined for restoration and eternal life.
The central question this passage asks us is this: What are you trusting in? Are you trusting in the fact that you are "in the land," that you are a member of a church, that you look the part? Or have you been brought, through the humbling work of the Spirit, to a place of exile from your own self-sufficiency? Have you been made to see that you are rotten in yourself, and have you cast yourself completely on the grace of God in Jesus Christ?
God's evaluation is the only one that matters. He is sorting the figs. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus Christ became a curse for us, taking the rottenness of our sin upon Himself on the cross, so that we, by faith in Him, might become the good figs, the righteousness of God, pleasing and acceptable in His sight forever.