Bird's-eye view
Following the vision of the two baskets of figs, this passage delivers the divine interpretation of the second basket. While the first basket of good figs represented the exiles in Babylon whom God promised to restore, this section pronounces a terrifying and total judgment upon the remaining leadership and people in Judah and Egypt. The central metaphor is that of figs so rotten they are inedible and utterly useless. This is God's verdict on King Zedekiah, his court, and all who refused to submit to God's decreed judgment through Babylon. Their rebellion and false sense of security had rendered them corrupt to the core. God promises to make them a horror and a byword throughout the world, pursuing them with the classic covenant curses of sword, famine, and pestilence until they are completely scraped off the land He had given their fathers. This is not just a political catastrophe; it is a formal, covenantal excommunication executed by God Himself.
The passage is a stark illustration of the principle that outward position does not guarantee divine favor. The people left in Jerusalem thought they were the faithful remnant, the lucky ones who had escaped. God declares the opposite: the ones who submitted to His chastening hand in exile were the good figs, and the ones who stubbornly clung to a condemned land and a corrupt leadership were the rotten ones. This is God's sovereign pruning of His people, a holy disgust with a religion that has become entirely putrid.
Outline
- 1. The Divine Verdict on the Remnant (Jer 24:8-10)
- a. The Analogy of the Rotten Figs (Jer 24:8a)
- b. The Identification of the Condemned: Zedekiah and the Remnant in Judah and Egypt (Jer 24:8b)
- c. The Nature of the Judgment: To Be a Universal Horror and Reproach (Jer 24:9)
- d. The Means of the Judgment: Sword, Famine, and Pestilence Unto Annihilation from the Land (Jer 24:10)
Context In Jeremiah
This passage is the second half of the diptych presented in Jeremiah 24. The historical setting is shortly after 597 B.C., when Nebuchadnezzar had deported King Jeconiah (Jehoiachin), his court, and thousands of the leading citizens to Babylon. He then installed Zedekiah as a puppet king in Jerusalem. The vision of the two baskets of figs addresses the spiritual state of these two groups. The common assumption in Jerusalem was that those taken into exile were the accursed ones, while those who remained were the blessed remnant. God, through Jeremiah, radically overturns this assumption. The exiles, the "good figs," are the ones with a future and a hope of restoration (Jer 24:4-7). This passage, verses 8-10, pronounces the curse on the "rotten figs," the very people who believed they were secure. This oracle thus serves as a severe warning against presumption and a clarification of who God considers His true people during this time of judgment. It is not about location, but about submission to the sovereign and disciplinary hand of God.
Key Issues
- The Sovereignty of God in Judgment
- The Nature of Covenant Curses
- The Deception of False Security
- The Uselessness of Corrupt Religion
- Corporate Guilt and Punishment
- The Reversal of Earthly Expectations
Inedible Religion
The central image here is one of holy revulsion. The figs are not just bruised or a little past their prime. They are rotten, putrid, inedible. They are useless for the one thing a fig is made for: to be eaten. This is God's assessment of the official religion left in Jerusalem under Zedekiah. It still had the outward shape of a fig, with a king, priests, and a temple. But inwardly, it was a seething mass of corruption. It was a religion that could not be consumed, could not be accepted, by a holy God. It was spiritually nauseating.
This is a permanent warning to the people of God. It is entirely possible for a church, a denomination, or a Christian college to maintain all the outward structures of the faith while being inwardly so rotten that God finds them inedible. When worship becomes a performance, when doctrine becomes a cloak for greed, when piety is a substitute for justice, the whole enterprise becomes disgusting to heaven. God does not grade on a curve. He distinguishes between the good and the rotten, and the destiny of the rotten figs is to be thrown out for good.
Verse by Verse Commentary
8 ‘But like the rotten figs which cannot be eaten due to rottenness, indeed, thus says Yahweh, so I will give over Zedekiah king of Judah and his officials and the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land and the ones who inhabit the land of Egypt.
God begins with the conclusion of His olfactory inspection. The figs are bad, so bad they cannot be eaten. The rottenness is not a surface-level problem; it is their essential quality. Then comes the direct application, introduced with the weight of divine authority: thus says Yahweh. The rotten figs are Zedekiah, his court, and the people who remained in Judah. These were the ones who saw Jeconiah and the others hauled off to Babylon and breathed a sigh of relief, thinking, "We are the special ones, the ones God protected." God says, no, you are the refuse. He also includes those who had already fled to Egypt, seeking a political and military alliance there instead of submitting to God's word through Jeremiah. Whether they stayed in the land in rebellion or fled to a pagan nation in rebellion, the core sin was the same: a refusal to bow to the declared will of God.
9 I will give them over to be a terror and an evil for all the kingdoms of the earth, as a reproach and a proverb, a byword and a curse in all places where I will banish them.
The judgment is described in terms of public, international humiliation. God says, "I will give them over." He is the active agent. Their fate is not an accident of geopolitics. He will make them a terror, a horrifying spectacle, for all the kingdoms of the earth. Their downfall will be an object lesson for the nations. The list of shame piles up: a reproach (a thing of scorn), a proverb (their name will become a cautionary tale, as in "don't end up like Judah"), a byword (a taunt), and a curse (people will invoke their name when cursing others). This is a complete and total reversal of the Abrahamic promise, where Israel was to be a blessing to the nations. Through their covenant unfaithfulness, they have become a curse to the nations. Their shame will be as universal as their dispersion.
10 I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence upon them until they come to an end from being upon the land which I gave to them and their fathers.’ ”
Here God names the instruments of His wrath. The triad of sword, famine, and pestilence is the standard list of covenant curses found in the Torah (e.g., Leviticus 26). God is not being arbitrary; He is simply executing the terms of the contract that Israel herself agreed to at Sinai. The sword represents death by warfare. Famine represents the collapse of the agrarian society. Pestilence represents disease, which often follows war and famine. These three horsemen will pursue the rotten figs relentlessly. And the goal of this judgment is utterly final: until they come to an end from being upon the land. The very land that was the central promise of the covenant, the land "which I gave to them and their fathers," will be cleansed of them. The gift, having been profaned by the recipient, is now being revoked in the most violent way imaginable.
Application
The principle of the two baskets of figs is timeless. God is always distinguishing between true faith and its counterfeit. The temptation for us is always to assume that because we are in the right place, geographically or institutionally, we are therefore the good figs. We are in the "good" church, we hold to the "sound" confession, we live in the "Christian" nation. But this passage teaches us that God looks past all that and inspects the fruit itself. Is it good, or is it rotten?
The defining difference between the two baskets was submission. The good figs had submitted to the hard providence of God in the exile. The bad figs were resisting it, trusting in their own plans, their own location, and their own political savvy. The application for us is to ask where we are resisting the declared will of God. Are we fighting His providence? Are we refusing a difficult word from Scripture because it doesn't fit our plans? Are we trusting in the external structures of our religion instead of a living, submissive faith in the Lord Jesus?
Ultimately, there are only two kinds of people. There are those who, like rotten figs, are full of their own self-righteousness and are therefore inedible to a holy God. And there are those who, confessing their own rottenness, have been made good by the grace of God in Jesus Christ. Christ is the true vine, and we are the branches. Apart from Him, we are fit only to be thrown out and burned. But grafted into Him, we who were rotten can begin to bear good fruit, edible fruit, for the glory of God.