Exodus 22:29

22:29 “Do not hold back offerings from your granaries or your vats. ¹  You must give me the firstborn of your sons.

Jeremiah 24:2

24:2 One basket had very good-looking figs in it. They looked like those that had ripened early. ²  The other basket had very bad-looking figs in it, so bad they could not be eaten.

Hosea 9:10

9:10 When I found Israel, it was like finding grapes in the wilderness.

I viewed your ancestors ³  like an early fig on a fig tree in its first season.

Then they came to Baal-Peor and they dedicated themselves to shame –

they became as detestable as what they loved.

Micah 7:1

Micah Laments Judah’s Sin

7:1 I am depressed! ⁴ 

Indeed, ⁵  it is as if the summer fruit has been gathered,

and the grapes have been harvested. ⁶ 

There is no grape cluster to eat,

no fresh figs that I crave so much. ⁷ 

¹ tn The expressions are unusual. U. Cassuto renders them: “from the fullness of your harvest and from the outflow of your presses” (Exodus, 294). He adds the Hittite parallel material to show that the people were to bring the offerings on time and not let them overlap, because the firstfruits had to be eaten first by the priest.

² sn See Isa 28:4; Hos 9:10.

³ tn Heb “fathers”; a number of more recent English versions use the more general “ancestors” here.

⁴ tn Heb “woe to me!” In light of the image that follows, perhaps one could translate, “I am disappointed.”

⁵ tn Or “for.”

⁶ tn Heb “I am like the gathering of the summer fruit, like the gleanings of the harvest.” Micah is not comparing himself to the harvested fruit. There is an ellipsis here, as the second half of the verse makes clear. The idea is, “I am like [one at the time] the summer fruit is gathered and the grapes are harvested.”

⁷ tn Heb “my appetite craves.”