24:1 The Lord showed me two baskets of figs sitting before his temple. This happened after King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon deported Jehoiakim’s son, King Jeconiah of Judah. He deported him and the leaders of Judah, along with the craftsmen and metal workers, and took them to Babylon. 1 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. 24:3 The Lord said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” I answered, “I see figs. The good ones look very good. But the bad ones look very bad, so bad that they cannot be eaten.”
24:4 The Lord said to me, 3 24:5 “I, the Lord, the God of Israel, say: ‘The exiles whom I sent away from here to the land of Babylon 4 are like those good figs. I consider them to be good. 24:6 I will look after their welfare 5 and will restore them to this land. There I will build them up and will not tear them down. I will plant them firmly in the land 6 and will not uproot them. 7 24:7 I will give them the desire to acknowledge that I 8 am the Lord. I will be their God and they will be my people. For they will wholeheartedly 9 return to me.’
24:8 “I, the Lord, also solemnly assert: ‘King Zedekiah of Judah, his officials, and the people who remain in Jerusalem 10 or who have gone to live in Egypt are like those bad figs. I consider them to be just like those bad figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten. 11
1 sn See 2 Kgs 24:10-17 (especially vv. 14-16). Nebuchadnezzar left behind the poorest people of the land under the puppet king Zedekiah. Jeconiah has already been referred to earlier in 13:18; 22:25-26. The deportation referred to here occurred in 597
2 sn See Isa 28:4; Hos 9:10.
3 tn Heb “The word of the
4 tn Heb “the land of the Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4.
5 tn Heb “I will set my eyes upon them for good.” For the nuance of “good” see Jer 21:10; Amos 9:4 (in these cases the opposite of harm; see BDB 375 s.v. טוֹבָה 1).
6 tn The words “There” and “firmly in the land” are not in the text but are implicit from the connection and the metaphor. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.
7 sn For these terms see Jer 1:10.
8 tn Heb “I will give them a heart to know me that I am the
9 tn Heb “with all their heart.”
10 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
11 tn Heb “Like the bad figs which cannot be eaten from badness [= because they are so bad] surely [emphatic כִּי, ki] so I regard Zedekiah, king of Judah, and his officials and the remnant of Jerusalem which remains in this land and those who are living in Egypt.” The sentence has been restructured in the translation to conform more to contemporary English style. For the use of נָתַן (natan) meaning “regard” or “treat like” see BDB 681 s.v. נָתַן 3.c and compare the usage in Ezek 28:6;Gen 42:30.