Jeremiah 40:10

40:10 I for my part will stay at Mizpah to represent you before the Babylonians ¹  whenever they come to us. You for your part go ahead and harvest the wine, the dates, the figs, ²  and the olive oil, and store them in jars. Go ahead and settle down in the towns that you have taken over.” ³ 

Jeremiah 40:12

40:12 So all these Judeans returned to the land of Judah from the places where they had been scattered. They came to Gedaliah at Mizpah. Thus they harvested a large amount of wine and dates and figs. ⁴ 

Amos 8:1

More Visions and Messages of Judgment

8:1 The sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw ⁵  a basket of summer fruit. ⁶ 

Micah 7:1

Micah Laments Judah’s Sin

7:1 I am depressed! ⁷ 

Indeed, ⁸  it is as if the summer fruit has been gathered,

and the grapes have been harvested. ⁹ 

There is no grape cluster to eat,

no fresh figs that I crave so much. ¹⁰ 

¹ tn Heb “Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for explanation.

² tn Heb “summer fruit.” “Summer fruit” is meaningless to most modern readers; dates and figs are what is involved.

³ tn This plus “Things will go well with you” is in essence the substance of the oath. The pronouns are emphatic, “And I, behold I will stay…and you, you may gather.” The imperatives in the second half of the verse are more a form of permission than of command or advice (cf. NJPS, REB, TEV and compare the usage in 40:4 and the references in the translator’s note there).

⁴ tn Heb “summer fruit.” “Summer fruit” is meaningless to most modern readers; dates and figs are what is involved.

⁵ tn Heb “behold” or “look.”

⁶ sn The basket of summer fruit (also in the following verse) probably refers to figs from the summer crop, which ripens in August-September. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 115.

⁷ tn Heb “woe to me!” In light of the image that follows, perhaps one could translate, “I am disappointed.”

⁸ tn Or “for.”

⁹ 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.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “my appetite craves.”