Commentary - Jeremiah 24:4-7

Bird's-eye view

In this brief but potent oracle, God reveals His sovereign and utterly counter-intuitive perspective on the unfolding judgment against Judah. After showing Jeremiah a vision of two baskets of figs, one very good and one very bad, He interprets the vision. The world, and certainly the proud remnant left in Jerusalem, would have assumed that those carted off to Babylon were the ones under God's curse, while those who remained were the blessed. God declares the precise opposite. The exiles, the ones who appear to be rejected, are His "good figs," the objects of His gracious attention and the raw material for His future restoration. The central promise here is nothing less than the heart of the New Covenant: God will not simply command obedience from the outside, but will sovereignly perform spiritual heart surgery on His people, giving them a new heart to know Him, love Him, and return to Him. This passage is a profound statement on divine election, the nature of true repentance, and the foundational truth that salvation, from beginning to end, is the work of God alone.

This is not a message of sentimental optimism. It is a message of hope forged in the fires of judgment. The path to restoration for Judah was not by avoiding the discipline of exile, but by going straight through it. God's purpose was not merely to punish, but to purify. He was sending His chosen people into the crucible of Babylon in order to burn away their idolatry and give them a new heart, a heart that would finally beat in rhythm with His own. The passage stands as a permanent reminder that God's ways are not our ways, and His assessment of who is "good" often turns human wisdom completely on its head.

Outline

Context In Jeremiah

This oracle is delivered after the first deportation to Babylon in 597 B.C. King Jeconiah, his court, and many of the skilled workers of Judah have been carried off into exile. Back in Jerusalem, a man named Zedekiah has been installed as a puppet king by Nebuchadnezzar. The popular sentiment, fueled by false prophets, was that the exile would be short and that those who remained in the land were the righteous, the fortunate, the ones God had preserved. Jeremiah's message here cuts directly against that proud and deceptive narrative. He has already confronted the false prophet Hananiah, who broke the yoke to symbolize a quick end to Babylonian rule (Jeremiah 28). This vision of the figs serves as God's definitive statement on the matter. The future of God's covenant people does not lie with the arrogant remnant in Jerusalem, but with the chastened and humbled exiles in Babylon. This sets the stage for Jeremiah's later letter to the exiles, telling them to build houses, plant gardens, and settle in for a long stay, for God's purposes would be worked out there, not in a rebellious Jerusalem destined for total destruction.

Key Issues

The Good Figs of God's Good Pleasure

We live in a world that judges everything by sight. Success is measured by what you can see: the size of the building, the numbers in the pews, the political influence you wield. The people left in Jerusalem under Zedekiah had all the outward signs. They still had the city, they still had the temple (for a little while longer), and they still had a king. They looked at their brothers being marched off to Babylon in chains and thought, "Poor souls. God has surely rejected them." And God looks down from heaven and says, "You have it exactly backwards."

This is the consistent pattern of God's work in the world. He chooses the foolish things to shame the wise, the weak things to shame the strong. He chooses the younger brother over the older, the barren woman to be the mother of the promised seed, and a crucified Messiah to be the King of all creation. Here, He chooses the captives to be the heirs of the promise. The message for us is stark and simple: do not trust your eyes when they contradict God's Word. The path to glory is often through humiliation. The way to be built up is first to be torn down. The way to life is through death. The exiles were being disciplined by a loving Father, while the remnant in Jerusalem was being left to rot in their pride, like the basket of foul figs, unfit for any use.

Verse by Verse Commentary

4 Then the word of Yahweh came to me, saying,

This is the standard, authoritative opening. What follows is not Jeremiah's pastoral advice or his political analysis. This is a direct communication from the sovereign God of the universe. Jeremiah is a conduit. The authority rests entirely on the one who is speaking through him. In a time of rampant deceit, with false prophets whispering sweet nothings in the ears of the king, this declaration is crucial. This is the truth. This is reality. Pay attention.

5 “Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, ‘Like these good figs, so I will recognize as good the exiles of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans.

God begins by identifying Himself as Yahweh, the covenant-keeping God, and the God of Israel specifically. He has not abandoned His people. Then comes the shocker. The good figs, the choice fruit, are the exiles. Notice the active, sovereign language. God does not say, "whom Nebuchadnezzar dragged away." He says, "whom I have sent." The Babylonian army was merely God's instrument, His rod of discipline. The exile was not a historical accident; it was a divine assignment. And most importantly, God says, "I will recognize as good." Their goodness was not inherent. They were sinners just like those left in Jerusalem. But God, in His electing grace, set His favor upon them. He "recognized" them, or "acknowledged" them for good. This is the language of election. God chooses them and designates them as the vehicle of His saving purpose, not because of what they have done, but because of what He is about to do in them.

6 For I will set My eyes on them for good, and I will return them to this land; and I will build them up and not pull them down, and I will plant them and not uproot them.

Here the Lord unfolds the practical outworking of His gracious recognition. First, "I will set My eyes on them for good." In the ancient world, the gaze of the king meant everything. It could mean life or death. Here, the King of Heaven promises to watch over His exiled people with benevolent, protective care. His gaze upon them is for their welfare. Second, He promises restoration to the land. The exile is not permanent. It is a temporary, remedial judgment. Third, He uses the very language of Jeremiah's original commission. In Jeremiah 1:10, God set him over nations "to uproot and to tear down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant." The first part of that commission was coming to pass on Jerusalem. But for the remnant in exile, God promises the second part. The deconstruction will be followed by a divine reconstruction. He will build them, He will plant them, and this time, the work will be permanent. The negative is explicitly stated: "not pull them down... not uproot them." This is a promise of eternal covenant security.

7 I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am Yahweh; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart.

This verse is the absolute pinnacle of the passage and one of the clearest expressions of the New Covenant in the Old Testament. How will God accomplish this permanent restoration? How will He ensure they are not uprooted again? He will do it by changing them from the inside out. The fundamental problem with Old Covenant Israel was a heart problem. They had the law on tablets of stone, but their hearts were stone as well. God's solution is radical: "I will give them a heart to know Me." He doesn't say "I will instruct their hearts" or "I will encourage them to have a new heart." He says "I will give" it. This is the sovereign grace of regeneration. It is a divine gift, a spiritual transplant. The result of this new heart is twofold. First, the covenant formula is restored in its fullest sense: "they will be My people, and I will be their God." The relationship, broken by sin, is healed at its core. Second, this new heart produces true repentance. "They will return to Me with their whole heart." This is not the half-hearted, superficial repentance of the past. Because God has captured their hearts, they will return to Him freely, fully, and joyfully. The internal change wrought by God produces the external fruit of obedience and worship.

Application

The message of the good figs is a necessary corrective for the church in every generation. We are constantly tempted to evaluate spiritual reality based on worldly metrics. We see a church that is large, wealthy, and culturally influential, and we assume it must be the good figs. We see a small, struggling congregation, perhaps facing persecution or cultural irrelevance, and we are tempted to see them as the bad figs. God tells us to look again, and to look with His eyes.

The discipline of the Lord is a mark of sonship, not of rejection. The exile was not God casting His people away; it was God preparing His people for true restoration. When we face trials, when our plans are overthrown and we are carried away into a "Babylon" of sorts, we must ask if God is not in fact treating us as His good figs, stripping away our pride and self-reliance so that He can do a deeper work within us.

And most centrally, our only hope for a genuine relationship with God is the promise of this text. We cannot, by our own willpower, give ourselves a new heart. We can't make ourselves love God or desire to obey Him. Our hearts, by nature, are the bad figs, rotten and rebellious. The gospel is the good news that God, in Christ, does for us what we could never do for ourselves. Through the work of the Holy Spirit, He takes out our heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh, a heart that knows Him, loves Him, and returns to Him. The Christian life is the experience of living out this miraculous, God-given heart transplant.