The Divine Sorting of Rotten Fruit Text: Jeremiah 24:8-10
Introduction: God's Quality Control
We live in a sentimental age, an age that has tried to domesticate the Lion of Judah and turn Him into a declawed housecat. We want a God who is endlessly affirming and entirely non-judgmental. We want a divine therapist, not a divine King. We have constructed a god in our own image, a god who would never, ever call a fig "rotten." He would, we imagine, call it "alternatively good" or perhaps "a fig on its own journey."
But the God of the Bible, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is a God of sharp distinctions. He is the one who separated light from darkness, and He has never stopped making such separations. He separates sheep from goats, wheat from chaff, and in our text today, He separates good figs from bad figs. This is not a quaint agricultural metaphor. This is a terrifying object lesson in covenant judgment. God had shown Jeremiah a vision of two baskets of figs placed before the temple. One basket was full of very good figs, like the first ripe figs of the season. The other was full of very bad figs, so rotten they could not be eaten. The good figs represented the exiles already taken to Babylon with Jeconiah, those whom God would preserve and restore. Our text today deals with the other basket.
The rotten figs were King Zedekiah, his court officials, and the remnant of Judah left behind in the land, along with those who had fled to Egypt thinking they could escape God's decree. These were the men who thought they were the smart ones. They were the ones who stayed, who compromised, who played the geopolitical games, who trusted in their own wits and in the supposed strength of Egypt. They looked at the exiles being marched off to Babylon and likely thought, "Poor souls. We are the fortunate ones." But God's accounting is not like our accounting. He saw them not as the remnant of hope, but as the residue of rebellion. They were putrid, inedible, and fit only to be thrown out.
This passage is a stark reminder that God has standards. He is not a passive observer of human history; He is its active, holy, and just Judge. And when a people who are in covenant with Him persist in high-handed rebellion, when they become spiritually rotten to the core, the time for warnings passes, and the time for disposal arrives. This is a hard word, but it is a necessary one, for the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
The Text
‘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.
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.
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.’
(Jeremiah 24:8-10 LSB)
The Inedible Remnant (v. 8)
We begin with the Lord's clear and devastating verdict:
"‘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." (Jeremiah 24:8)
The first thing to notice is the sheer offensiveness of the metaphor. These are not slightly bruised figs. They are so rotten, so putrid, that they "cannot be eaten." They are useless for their created purpose. A fig is for eating. A covenant people are for glorifying God through faithful obedience. When they cease to do that, they become spiritually inedible. They are an offense to the holiness of God. This is the state of Zedekiah and his administration. They were the leaders of God's people, and they had led them into a state of complete spiritual decay.
God's judgment here is comprehensive. It falls upon the leadership, "Zedekiah king of Judah and his officials." Judgment always begins at the house of God, and it often begins with the leadership. These were the men responsible for the covenant apostasy, for the idolatry, for the injustice, for the rebellion against God's plain word through His prophet Jeremiah. They refused to submit to the discipline of Babylon, which God had ordained. They thought they could chart their own course, and in doing so, they sealed their doom.
But the judgment also includes "the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land." These were the people who prided themselves on not being deported. They saw themselves as the true heirs, the ones who had weathered the storm. But God saw them as clinging to a condemned building. Their presence in the land was not a sign of blessing, but rather a sign that their judgment was not yet complete.
And notice, it also includes "the ones who inhabit the land of Egypt." This is a crucial detail. Many had fled to Egypt, thinking it was a safe haven. They were running from God's ordained judgment in Babylon, and they ran straight into the arms of Israel's old nemesis, the very symbol of slavery and paganism. You cannot escape God's judgment by changing your geographical location. When God has a controversy with you, you cannot outrun Him. Fleeing from God's discipline is simply choosing a different, and often worse, form of that same discipline.
A Public Spectacle of Shame (v. 9)
In verse 9, God details the nature of their punishment. It is not a private affair. It is a public humiliation designed to be a lesson to the nations.
"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." (Jeremiah 24:9)
God says He will "give them over." This is the language of divine abandonment. It echoes Romans 1, where God gives rebellious humanity over to the lusts of their hearts. Here, He gives His rebellious covenant people over to the consequences of their sin on a global stage. They will become "a terror and an evil for all the kingdoms of the earth." Their fate will be so shocking that it will cause other nations to tremble. The name of Judah, which was meant to be a name of praise, will become a source of horror.
Look at the cascade of terms God uses: a reproach, a proverb, a byword, and a curse. A "reproach" means they will be the object of scorn and contempt. A "proverb" and a "byword" mean their story will become a cautionary tale, a shorthand for disaster. When someone in a foreign land wanted to describe a catastrophic failure, they would say, "May you not end up like Judah." Their very name would become synonymous with divine judgment.
To become a "curse" is the final, terrible inversion of their calling. God had called Abraham and his descendants to be a blessing to the nations (Genesis 12:3). Through them, all the families of the earth were to be blessed. But through their covenant unfaithfulness, they had become the opposite. They were now a curse. When people wanted to curse someone, they would say, "May God do to you what He did to Judah." This is the covenant lawsuit in its starkest terms. The blessings of Deuteronomy 28 have been forfeited, and the curses of Deuteronomy 28 have come upon them with full force.
The Instruments of Total Deconstruction (v. 10)
Finally, God names the instruments of this judgment and declares its ultimate end.
"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.’" (Jeremiah 24:10)
Notice the active, sovereign language. "I will send." The sword of the Babylonians, the famines that result from siege warfare, the pestilences that breed in such conditions, these are not random tragedies. They are not unfortunate geopolitical events. They are the arrows from God's own quiver. He is the one directing the sword, orchestrating the famine, and dispatching the pestilence. Our God is not a nervous bystander wringing His hands in heaven. He governs all things, including the hard providences, the painful judgments that He brings upon a rebellious people.
And the goal of this judgment is utterly final: "until they come to an end from being upon the land." For this rotten remnant, there would be no recovery. Their claim to the land, which was a covenant inheritance, was now revoked. The land itself would vomit them out. This was a complete and total dispossession. The gift God had given to them and their fathers was being taken away because they had despised the Giver.
Conclusion: Good Figs and Rotten Figs Today
It is easy for us to read a passage like this and thank God that we are not like Zedekiah. We are not rebellious Judean kings. But the principle of the two baskets is a permanent one. God is always sorting. He is always distinguishing between those who are His and those who are not, between true faith and hollow religiosity.
The Western world, and particularly the church in the West, is filled with rotten figs. We have leaders who compromise with the spirit of the age, who refuse to submit to the plain Word of God, and who counsel others to flee to Egypt, that is, to trust in secular solutions, political saviors, or therapeutic nonsense instead of radical faith and obedience. We have churches that are so rotten with worldliness, so consumed by moralistic therapeutic deism, that they are inedible. They are useless to God for His purposes. They bear the name of Christ, but they are a reproach, a byword among the nations for their hypocrisy and impotence.
The good news is that there is a basket of good figs. These are the ones whom God preserves by His grace. The good figs in Jeremiah's day were the ones who submitted to God's strange and difficult providence. They accepted the exile. They went to Babylon, and there, God promised to watch over them, to build them up, and to bring them back. True faith does not mean escaping God's discipline; it means submitting to it.
Ultimately, the only truly good fruit is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the true vine, and we are the branches. Apart from Him, we are all rotten figs, fit only for the curse. But in Him, through His substitutionary death, He took the curse for us. He became a reproach for us. He was given over by God, so that we might be accepted by God. He was banished to the outer darkness of the cross, so that we might be brought home to the land of promise, the new heavens and the new earth.
Therefore, the call today is simple. Do not be a rotten fig. Do not trust in your own cleverness, in your political machinations, or in the supposed safety of Egypt. Repent of your sin and your self-reliance. Submit to King Jesus. Cling to Him by faith alone. Let Him cut away the rot in your life, and He will make you good fruit, pleasing to the Father, and fit for the Master's use. For the day of the great sorting is coming, and on that day, only the fruit that is found in Christ will remain.