Jeremiah 24 KJV
Two Baskets of Figs
Jeremiah Chapter 24: Two Baskets of Figs
The vision reverses conventional remnant theology by designating the 597 BC deportees under Jehoiachin as the 'good figs' marked for divine favor, while those remaining under Zedekiah or fleeing to Egypt become the inedible figs slated for curse.
1he 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.
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.
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.
4 Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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Did You Know?
The vision reverses conventional remnant theology by designating the 597 BC deportees under Jehoiachin as the 'good figs' marked for divine favor, while those remaining under Zedekiah or fleeing to Egypt become the inedible figs slated for curse.
Jeremiah's language of planting the exiles and not plucking them up deliberately echoes the four verbs of his inaugural call in chapter 1, framing the basket vision as the fulfillment of his prophetic commission rather than mere prediction.
The chapter's placement immediately after the sign of the wooden yokes in chapter 27 creates a deliberate literary contrast between submission to Babylon as the path to life and resistance as the path to the 'bad figs' judgment.
The inedible figs are described with the rare Hebrew term for something utterly spoiled, evoking ritual impurity laws and foreshadowing the later portrayal of the Egyptian remnant in chapters 42-44 as permanently defiled and beyond restoration.
The promise that the restored exiles will 'know' the Lord uses the same verb found in the new covenant oracle of chapter 31, indicating that the fig vision anticipates the interior transformation of the heart rather than a simple political return.