Yahweh showed me, and behold, two baskets of figs were set before Yahweh’s temple, after Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the princes of Judah, with the craftsmen and smiths, from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon. One basket had very good figs, like the figs that are first-ripe; and the other basket had very bad figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad.
Then Yahweh asked me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” I said, “Figs. The good figs are very good, and the bad are very bad, so bad that can’t be eaten.”
Yahweh’s word came to me, saying, “Yahweh, the God of Israel says: ‘Like these good figs, so I will regard the captives of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans, for good. For I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them again to this land. I will build them, and not pull them down. I will plant them, and not pluck them up. I will give them a heart to know me, that I am Yahweh. They will be my people, and I will be their God; for they will return to me with their whole heart.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 The meaning of this vision is, that there was…
The meaning of this vision is, that there was no reason for the ungodly to flatter themselves if they continued in their wickedness, though God did bear with them for a time. The King Jeconiah had been then carried away into exile, together with the chief men and artisans. The condition of the king and of the rest appeared indeed much worse than that of the people who remained in the country, for they still retained a hope that the royal dignity would again be restored, and that the city would flourish again and enjoy abundance of every blessing, though it was then nearly emptied; for everything precious had become a prey to the conqueror; and we indeed know how great was the avarice and rapacity of Nebuchadnezzar. The city then was at that time almost empty, and desolate in comparison with its former splendor. They however who remained might indeed have hoped for a better state of things, but those who had gone into exile were become like dead bodies. Hence miserable Jeconiah, who was banished and deprived of his kingdom, was apparently undergoing a most grievous punishment, together with his companions, who had been led away with him; and the Jews who remained at Jerusalem no doubt flattered themselves, as though God had dealt more kindly with them. Had they really repented, they would indeed have given thanks to God for having spared them; but as they had abused his forbearance, it was necessary to set before them what this chapter contains, even that they foolishly reasoned when they concluded, that God had been more propitious to them than to the rest.
But this is shewn by a vision: the Prophet saw two baskets or flaskets; and he saw them full of figs, and that before the temple of God; but the figs in one were sweet and savory; and the figs in the other were bitter, so that they could not be eaten. By the sweet figs God intended to represent Jeconiah and the other exiles, who had left their country: and he compares them to the ripe figs; for ripe figs have a sweet taste, while the other figs are rejected on account of their bitterness. In like manner, Jeconiah and the rest had as it were been consumed; but there were figs still remaining; and he says that the lot of those was better whom God had in due time punished, than of the others who remained, as they were accumulating a heavier judgment by their obstinacy. For since the time that Nebuchadnezzar had spoiled the city and had taken from it everything valuable, those who remained had not ceased to add sins to sins, so that there was a larger portion of divine vengeance ready to fall on them.
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We now see the design of this vision. And he says that the vision was presented to him by God; and to say this was very necessary, that his doctrine might have more weight with the people. God, indeed, often spoke without a vision; but we have elsewhere stated what was the design of a vision; it was a sort of seal to what was delivered; for in order that the Prophet might possess greater authority, they not only spoke, but as it were sealed their doctrine, as though God had graven on it, as it were by his finger, a certain mark. But as this subject has been elsewhere largely handled, I shall now pass it by.
Behold, he says, two baskets of figs set before the temple. The place ought to be noticed. It may have been that the Prophet was not allowed to move a step from his own house; and the vision may have been presented to him in the night, during thick darkness: but the temple being mentioned, shews that a part of the people had not been taken away without cause, and the other part left in the city; for it had proceeded from God himself. For in the temple God manifested himself; and therefore the prophets, when they wished to storm the hearts of the ungodly, often said,
“Go forth shall God from his temple.” (Isaiah 26:21; Micah 1:3.)
The temple then is to be taken here for the tribunal of God. Hence, he says, that these two baskets were set in the temple; as though he said, that the whole people stood at God’s tribunal, and that those who had been already cast into exile had not been carried away at the will of their enemies, but because God designed to punish them.
The time also is mentioned, After Yeconiah the son of Jehohoiakim had been carried away; for had not this been added, the vision would have been obscure, and no one at this day could understand why God had set two baskets in the presence of Jeremiah. A distinction then is made here between the exiles and those who dwelt in their own country; and at the same time they were reduced to great poverty, and the city was deprived of its splendor; there was hardly any magnificence in the Temple, the royal palace was spoiled, and the race of David only reigned by permission. But though the calamity of the city and people was grievous, yet, as it has been said, the Jews who remained in the city thought themselves in a manner happy in comparison with their brethren, who were become as it were dead; for God had ejected the king, and he was treated disdainfully as a captive, and the condition of the others was still worse. This difference then between the captives and those who remained in the land is what is here represented.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 5, 7 The good figs signified them that were gone into…
The good figs signified them that were gone into captivity, and so saved their life, as Jer. 21:8, and the naughty figs them that remained, which were yet subject to the sword, famine and pestilence.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–7 Jer 24:1 The LORD shewed me, and, behold, two…
Jer 24:1 The 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.
Ver. 1. The Lord showed me.] By showing as well as by saying, hath God ever signified his mind to his people; by the visible as well as by the audible word, as in sacrifices and sacraments, for their better confirmation in the faith.
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And, behold, two baskets.] Dodaim, so called from dodim, breasts, because these two baskets resembled two breasts.
Were set before the temple.] Either visionally, or else actually there set; whether presented for firstfruits, {as Deu 26:2} or set to be sold in such a public place.
Before the temple.] To show that the Jews of both sorts gloried in the same God, but were differently regarded by him, and accordingly sentenced.
After that Nebuchadnezzar.] This then was showed to Jeremiah about the beginning of Zedekiah’s reign.
Had carried away captive Jeconiah.] Who was therefore and thenceforth called Jeconiah Asir, {1Ch 3:16} that is, Jeconiah the Prisoner. He was a wicked prince, and therefore written childless, and threatened with deportation. {Jer 22:30} Howbeit, because by the advice of the prophet Jeremiah he submitted to Nebuchadnezzar (who carried him away to Babylon, where, say the Rabbis, he repented, and was therefore at length advanced by Evilmerodah, as Jer 52:31), he and his company are here comforted, and pronounced more happy, however it might seem otherwise, than those that continued still in the land; and this, say the Hebrews, {a} was not obscurely set forth also by those two baskets of figs, whereof that which was worst showed best, and the other showed worst, till they came to be tasted.
With the carpenters,] Or, Craftsmen. {2Ki 24:14; 2Ki 24:16}
And smiths.] Heb., Enclosers - that is, say some, goldsmiths, whose work it is to set stones in gold; and these, thus carried away, are as a type of such, saith Oecolampadius, as are penitent and patient till the Lord shall turn again their captivity as the streams in the south.
{a} Raban., Hugo., Lyra.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 The sum of what God by his prophet revealeth…
The sum of what God by his prophet revealeth in this chapter is, that he would deal more graciously with those carried into captivity with Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, of which read 2Ki 24:12; 2Ch 36:10, than with those that should afterward be carried into captivity with Zedekiah. This the prophet hath revealed to him ill a vision of two baskets of figs, as followeth.
Some think these
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two baskets of figs were such as the people had brought for their first-fruits, because they are mentioned as
set before the temple; but this might be no more than a vision, or all appearance of two baskets. The time of this vision was some time betwixt the carrying away of Jeconiah, of which we read 2Ki 24:12, &c.; 2Ch 36:10, and the carrying away of Zedekiah his uncle, which was eleven years after. In 2Ki 24:16, there is a particular mention of the king of Babylon’s carrrying away the craftsmen and the smiths a thousand.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 This short chapter helps us to put a very…
This short chapter helps us to put a very comfortable construction upon a great many long ones, by showing us that the same providence which to some is a savour of death unto death may by the grace and blessing of God be made to others a savour of life unto life; and that, though God's people share with others in the same calamity, yet it is not the same to them that it is to others, but is designed for their good and shall issue in their good; to them it is a correcting rod in the hand of a tender Father, while to others it is an avenging sword in the hand of a righteous Judge. Observe,
I. The date of this sermon. It was after, a little after, Jeconiah's captivity, Jer 24:1. Jeconiah was himself a despised broken vessel, but with him were carried away some very valuable persons, Ezekiel for one (Eze 1:12); many of the princes of Judah then went into captivity, Daniel and his fellows were carried off a little before; of the people only the carpenters and the smiths were forced away, either because the Chaldeans needed some ingenious men of those trades (they had a great plenty of astrologers and stargazers, but a great scarcity of smiths and carpenters) or because the Jews would severely feel the loss of them, and would, for want of them, be unable to fortify their cities and furnish themselves with weapons of war. Now, it should seem, there were many good people carried away in that captivity, which the pious prophet laid much to heart, while there were those that triumphed in it, and insulted over those to whose lot it fell to go into captivity. Note, We must not conclude concerning the first and greatest sufferers that they were the worst and greatest sinners; for perhaps it may appear quite otherwise, as it did here.
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II. The vision by which this distinction of the captives was represented to the prophet's mind. He saw two baskets of figs, set before the temple, there ready to be offered as first-fruits to the honour of God. Perhaps the priests, being remiss in their duty, were not ready to receive them and dispose of them according to the law, and therefore Jeremiah sees them standing before the temple. But that which was the significancy of the vision was that the figs in one basket were extraordinarily good, those in the other basket extremely bad. The children of men are all as the fruits of the fig-tree, capable of being made serviceable to God and man (Jdg 9:11); but some are as good figs, than which nothing is more pleasant, others as damaged rotten figs, than which nothing is more nauseous. What creature viler than a wicked man, and what more valuable than a godly man! The good figs were like those that are first ripe, which are most acceptable (Mic 7:1) and most prized when newly come into season. The bad figs are such as could not be eaten, they were so evil; they could not answer the end of their creation, were neither pleasant nor good for food; and what then were they good for? If God has no honour from men, nor their generation any service, they are even like the bad figs, that cannot be eaten, that will not answer any good purpose. If the salt have lost its savour, it is thenceforth fit for nothing but the dunghill. Of the persons that are presented to the Lord at the door of his tabernacle, some are sincere, and they are very good; others dissemble with God, and they are very bad. Sinners are the worst of men, hypocrites the worst of sinners. Corruptio optimi est pessima - That which is best becomes, when corrupted, the worst.
III. The exposition and application of this vision. God intended by it to raise the dejected spirit of those that had gone into captivity, by assuring them of a happy return, and to humble and awaken the proud and secure spirits of those who continued yet in Jerusalem, by assuring them of a miserable captivity.
1. Here is the moral of the good figs, that were very good, the first ripe. These represented the pious captives, that seemed first ripe for ruin, for they went first into captivity, but should prove first ripe for mercy, and their captivity should help to ripen them; these are pleasing to God, as good figs are to us, and shall be carefully preserved for use. Now observe here,
(1.) Those that were already carried into captivity were the good figs that God would own. This shows, [1.] That we cannot determine of God's love or hatred by all that is before us. When God's judgments are abroad those are not always the worst that are first seized by them. [2.] That early suffering sometimes proves for the best to us. The sooner the child is corrected the better effect the correction is likely to have. Those that went first into captivity were as the son whom the father loves, and chastens betimes, chastens while there is hope; and it did well. But those that staid behind were like a child long left to himself, who, when afterwards corrected, is stubborn, and made worse by it, Lam 3:27.
(2.) God owns their captivity to be his doing. Whoever were the instruments of it, he ordered and directed it (Jer 24:5): I have sent them out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans. It is God that puts his gold into the furnace, to be tried; his hand is, in a special manner, to be eyed in the afflictions of good people. The judge orders the malefactor into the hand of an executioner, but the father corrects the child with his own hand.
(3.) Even this disgraceful uncomfortable captivity God intended for their benefit; and we are sure that his intentions are never frustrated: I have sent them into the land of the Chaldeans for their good. It seemed to be every way for their hurt, not only as it was the ruin of their estates, honours, and liberties, separated them from their relations and friends, and put them under the power of their enemies and oppressors, but as it sunk their spirits, discouraged their faith, deprived them of the benefit of God's oracles and ordinances, and exposed them to temptations; and yet it was designed for their good, and proved so, in the issue, as to many of them. Out of the eater came forth meat. By their afflictions they were convinced of sin, humbled under the hand of God, weaned from the world, made serious, taught to pray, and turned from their iniquity; particularly they were cured of their inclination to idolatry; and thus it was good for them that they were afflicted, Psa 119:67, Psa 119:71.
(4.) God promises them that he will own them in their captivity. Though they seem abandoned, they shall be acknowledged; the scornful relations they left behind will scarcely own them, or their kindred to them, but God says, I will acknowledge them. Note, The Lord knows those that are his, and will own them in all conditions; nakedness and sword shall not separate them from his love.
(5.) God assures them of his protection in their trouble, and a glorious deliverance out of it in due time, Jer 24:6. Being sent into captivity for their good, they shall not be lost there; but it shall be with them as it is with gold which the refiner puts into the furnace. [1.] He has his eye upon it while it is there, and it is a careful eye, to see that it sustain no damage: "I will set my eyes upon them for good, to order every thing for the best, that all the circumstances of the affliction may concur to the answering of the great intention of it." [2.] He will be sure to take it out of the furnace again as soon as the work designed upon it is done: I will bring them again to this land. They were sent abroad for improvement awhile, under a severe discipline; but they shall be fetched back, when they have gone through their trial there, to their Father's house. [3.] He will fashion his gold when he has refined it, will make it a vessel of honour fit for his use; so, when God has brought them back from their trial, he will build them and make them a habitation for himself, will plant them and make them a vineyard for himself. Their captivity was to square the rough stones and make them fit for his building, to prune up the young trees and make them fit for his planting.
(6.) He engages to prepare them for these temporal mercies which he designed for them by bestowing spiritual mercies upon them, Jer 24:7. It is this that will make their captivity be for their good; this shall be both the improvement of their affliction and their qualification for deliverance. When our troubles are sanctified to us, then we may be sure that they will end well. Now that which is promised is, [1.] That they should be better acquainted with God; they should learn more of God by his providences in Babylon than they had learned by all his oracles and ordinances in Jerusalem, thanks to divine grace, for, if that had not wrought mightily upon them in Babylon, they would for ever have forgotten God. It is here promised, I will give them, not so much a head to know me, but a heart to know me, for the right knowledge of God consists not in notion and speculation, but in the convictions of the practical judgment directing and governing the will and affections. A good understanding have all those that do his commandments, Psa 111:10. Where God gives a sincere desire and inclination to know him he will give that knowledge. It is God himself that gives a heart to know him, else we should perish for ever in our ignorance. [2.] That they should be entirely converted to God, to his will as their rule, his service as their business, and his glory as their end: They shall return to me with their whole heart. God himself undertakes for them that they shall; and, if he turn us, we shall be turned. This follows upon the former; for those that have a heart to know God aright will not only turn to him, but turn with their whole heart; for those that are either obstinate in their rebellion, or hypocritical in their religion, may truly be said to be ignorant of God. [3.] That thus they should be again taken into covenant with God, as much to their comfort as ever: They shall be my people, and I will be their God. God will own them, as formerly, for his people, in the discoveries of himself to them, in his acceptance of their services, and in his gracious appearances on their behalf; and they shall have liberty to own him for their God in their prayers to him and their expectations from him. Note, Those that have backslidden from God, if they do in sincerity return to him, are admitted as freely as any to all the privileges and comforts of the everlasting covenant, which is herein well-ordered, that every transgression in the covenant does not throw us out of covenant, and that afflictions are not only consistent with, but flowing from, covenant-love.
2. Here is the moral of the bad figs. Zedekiah and his princes and partizans yet remain in the land, proud and secure enough, Eze 11:3. Many had fled into Egypt for shelter, and they thought they had shifted well for themselves and their own safety, and boasted that though therein they had gone contrary to the command of God yet they had acted prudently for themselves. Now as to both these, that looked so scornfully upon those that had gone into captivity, it is here threatened, (1.) That, whereas those who were already carried away were settled in one country, where they had the comfort of one another's society, though in captivity, these should be dispersed and removed into all the kingdoms of the earth, where they should have no joy one of another. (2.) That, whereas those were carried captives for their good, these should be removed into all countries for their hurt. Their afflictions should be so far from humbling them that they should harden them, not bring them nearer to God, but set them at a greater distance from him. (3.) That, whereas those should have the honour of being owned of God in their troubles, these should have the shame of being abandoned by all mankind: In all places whither I shall drive them they shall be a reproach and a proverb. "Such a one is as false and proud as a Jew" - "Such a one is as poor and miserable as a Jew." All their neighbours shall make a jest of them, and of the calamities brought upon them. (4.) That, whereas those should return to their own land, never to see it more, and it shall be of no avail to them to plead that it was the land God gave to their fathers, for they had it from God, and he gave it to them upon condition of their obedience. (5.) That, whereas those were reserved for better times, these were reserved for worse; wherever they are removed the sword, and famine, and pestilence, shall be sent after them, shall soon overtake them, and, coming with commission so to do, shall overcome them. God has variety of judgments wherewith to prosecute those that fly from justice; and those that have escaped one may expect another, till they are brought to repent and reform.
Doubtless this prophecy had its accomplishment in the men of that generation yet, because we read not of any such remarkable difference between those of Jeconiah's captivity and those of Zedekiah's, it is probable that this has a typical reference to the last destruction of the Jews by the Romans, in which those of them that believed were taken care of, but those that continued obstinate in unbelief were driven into all countries for a taunt and a curse, and so they remain to this day.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–7 The Lord showed me,.... A vision, or in a…
The Lord showed me,.... A vision, or in a vision, what follows; for by this it appears that what was seen was not real, but what was exhibited in a visionary way by the Lord, and represented to the mind of the prophet:
and, behold, two baskets of figs were set before the temple of the Lord; or "pots", as Jarchi; these do not signify the law and Gospel, or the synagogue and church, or the Jews and Christians, or hell and heaven, as some have interpreted it, observed by Jerom; but the Jews that were in captivity with Jeconiah, and those that remained in Jerusalem with Zedekiah, as it is explained in some following verses. These baskets are said to be "set before the temple of the Lord", not to be sold there, but to be presented to the Lord; in allusion to the baskets of firstfruits, which, according to the law, were thither brought for that purpose, Deu 26:2; and signify, that the two people represented by them were before the Lord, in his sight, were known to him, and judged by him;
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after that Nebuchadnezzar 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: this was done when Jeconiah had reigned but little more than three months, and in the eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, Kg2 24:8. This is mentioned, not only to show the time of this vision, which was a little after this captivity, in the beginning of Zedekiah's reign; but to let us know who the captives were, signified by the good figs. The "carpenters" and "smiths" were carried away with the king and the princes, partly that they might be serviceable to the king of Babylon in his country; and partly that they might not be assisting to their own country in repairing their fortifications, and making instruments of war for them. There were a "thousand" of this sort carried captive, Kg2 24:16; where the former of these are called "craftsmen". Jarchi interprets both of the scholars of the wise men; and Kimchi, of counsellors and wise men. The word for "carpenters" is used both of carpenters and blacksmiths; and that for "smiths" may be rendered "enclosers", or "shutters up"; which the Targum understands of porters or shutters of gates; and some think goldsmiths are meant, that set or enclose precious stones in gold; and others are of opinion that masons are intended, so called from the building of walls for the enclosing of places. The Syriac version renders it "soldiers"; but those are distinguished from them, Kg2 24:14. The Septuagint version translates it "prisoners"; but so all the captives might be called; and it adds, what is not in the text, "and the rich"; and the Arabic version following that; though it is true they were carried captive; for it is said, "none remained, save the poorest sort of the people of the land", Kg2 24:14. This, according to Bishop Usher (x), was in the year of the world 3405, and before Christ 599; and so the authors of the Universal History (y) place it; and Mr. Whiston (z) also; and Mr. Bedford (a) a year later; and in the same year that this captivity began was Cyrus the Persian born, who was the deliverer of the Jews from it.
(x) Annales Vet. Test. p. 123. (y) Vol. 21. p. 60, (z) Chronological Tables, cent. 10. (a) Scripture Chronology, p. 678.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 5 Under the type of good and bad figs, ver.…
Under the type of good and bad figs, ver. 1-3. He fore- shews the return of some from captivity, ver. 4-7. and the ruin of Zedekiah and the rest, ver. 8-10.
And behold - Probably a vision.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 5, 7 Under the emblem of the good and bad figs…
CHAPTER XXIV
Under the emblem of the good and bad figs is represented the
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fate of the Jews already gone into captivity with Jeconiah,
and of those that remained still in their own country with
Zedekiah. It is likewise intimated that God would deal kindly
with the former, but that his wrath would still pursue the
latter, 1-10.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXIV
Verse 1. The Lord showed me, and, behold, two baskets of figs] Besides the transposition of whole chapters in this book, there is not unfrequently a transposition of verses, and parts of verses. Of this we have an instance in the verse before us; the first clause of which should be the last. Thus: -
"After that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, with the carpenters and smiths from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon, the Lord showed me, and, behold, two baskets of figs were set before the temple of the Lord."
Ver. 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."
This arrangement restores these verses to a better sense, by restoring the natural connexion.
This prophecy was undoubtedly delivered in the first year of the reign of Zedekiah.
Under the type of good and bad figs, God represents the state of the persons who had already been carried captives into Babylon, with their king Jeconiah, compared with the state of those who should be carried away with Zedekiah. Those already carried away, being the choice of the people, are represented by the good figs: those now remaining, and soon to be carried into captivity, are represented by the bad figs, that were good for nothing. The state also of the former in their captivity was vastly preferable to the state of those who were now about to be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon. The latter would be treated as double rebels; the former, being the most respectable of the inhabitants, were treated well; and even in captivity, a marked distinction would be made between them, God ordering it so. But the prophet sufficiently explains his own meaning.
Set before the temple] As an offering of the first-fruits of that kind.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 5 Jer 24:1. The Lord showed me — Probably in…
Jer 24:1. The Lord showed me — Probably in a vision; and behold two baskets of figs — Such as used to be offered up for first-fruits; were set before the temple of the Lord — Hebrew, מועדים, appointed, offered according to law, as Blaney renders the word; that is, they were brought and placed before the temple for an offering of first-fruits, as the law had directed. After Nebuchadnezzar had carried away captive Jeconiah — Concerning which, see 2Ki 24:11-16. This was in the eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign. With the carpenters and smiths — Or, the artificers and armorers, as Blaney translates the words; the former, חרשׁ, being “a general name for any handicraftsman, whether working in wood or metal;” but the latter, מסגר, from סגר, to shut in, or enclose, meaning properly, “the armorers who made the coats of mail which enclose the body. And it is reasonable to presume that the king of Babylon would be solicitous to carry all these off, with intent, not to employ them in his own service, but to prevent the Jews, who were left behind, from furnishing themselves with arms in case of a revolt.”
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4 Omit “were.” “Set before,” i. e put in the…
Omit “were.” “Set before,” i. e put in the appointed place for offerings of firstfruits in the forecourt of the temple.
Carpenters - “Craftsmen” (see the marginal reference).
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 5, 6 Engravers. Hebrew, "those who enclose," 4 Kings xxiv. 14.,…
Engravers. Hebrew, "those who enclose," 4 Kings xxiv. 14., and 1 Kings xiii. 19.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 (Chap 24)
III. APPENDIX
(Chap 24)
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Postscript to Jer_22:13-30. The Fourth King
Jer_24:1-10
1The Lord [Jehovah] shewed me, and behold, two baskets1of figs were set 2before the temple of the Lord [Jehovah] 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 2brought them to Babylon. One basket had3 very good figs, like the figs first ripe,4and the other basket had very naughty [bad] figs, which could not be eaten,5they 3were so bad. Then said the Lord [Jehovah] unto me, What seest thou, Jeremiah? And I said, Figs; the good figs very good, and the evil [bad] very evil [bad], that cannot be eaten, they are so evil [bad].
4 Again the word of the Lord [Jehovah] came unto me, saying:
5 Thus saith the Lord [Jehovah], the God of Israel:
Like these good figs, so the captives of Judah,
Whom I have sent away from this place into the land of the Chaldeans,
Will I regard6 for good;
6 And will set mine eye upon them for good,
And will bring them back into this land;
And will build them and not pull them down,
And plant them and not pluck them up;
7 And will give them a heart to know me, that I am Jehovah,
And they shall be my people;
I however will be their God,
When they return to me with their whole heart.
8 But like the bad figs, which cannot be eaten they are so bad,
—Thus saith Jehovah: I will make Zedekiah,
The king of Judah and his princes,
And the residue of Jerusalem, that are left in this land,
And those that dwell in the land of Egypt.
9 And I will make them a horror,
A calamity for all the kingdoms of the earth,
A shame and a proverb, a taunt and a curse,
In all places whither I shall drive them
10 And I will send among them the sword,
The famine and the pestilence;
Till they be entirely extirpated from the land,
Which I gave to them and their fathers.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
After the carrying away of Jehoiachin the prophet beholds in vision, two baskets of figs placed before the temple (Jer_24:1). The figs of one basket were very good, those of the other very bad (Jer_24:2). The prophet, when asked, affirms that he has perceived this correctly (Jer_24:3). Thereupon the Lord Himself interprets the vision: the good figs signify the portion of the people already carried away. The Lord will recognize them as good, bring them back, build and plant, inwardly renew them; He will be their God, they shall be His people (Jer_24:4-7). The bad figs signify the people left in Palestine with Zedekiah, and those who had already emigrated to Egypt (Jer_24:8). These shall be to all nations an object of horror and scorn (Jer_24:9), for the Lord will send among them the sword, famine and pestilence, till they are exterminated from the land (Jer_24:10). The date of this passage may be learned exactly from Jer_24:1. It was the time immediately subsequent to the carrying away of Jeconiah (2Ki_24:10-12). Hitzig correctly remarks, that the expression אַֽחֲרִי הַגְלוֹת, after … carried away, Jer_24:1, without further distinction, does not permit us to think of another epoch than that immediately subsequent to the deportation. The prophecy is also best explained by the situation at that period. For, as Graf remarks, those who remained may have triumphed over the others, and extolled their good fortune. On this feeling the prophet places a damper by the declaration, that the lot of the captives would be preferable to that of the others (comp. Jer_20:10). At all events the prophecy was delivered before the sending of that letter to the captives, which is treated of in Jeremiah 29. On the relation of this passage to the previous chapters consult the introduction to the Eighth Discourse.
Jer_24:1-2. The Lord … they were so bad.The opening is like that of Amo_7:1; Amo_7:4; Amo_7:7; Amo_8:1. Comp. Jer_1:11; Jer_1:13.—Shewed me. This distinguishes the subjective act of vision from the object seen, and designates the former as caused by Jehovah. This distinction with respect to physical vision is found times innumerable, (comp. the mode of expression in Gen_13:10; Gen_18:2; Gen_22:4; Gen_22:13, etc.), but has only a rhetorical significance. In passages like this and the above from Amos, to which may be added Zec_1:8; Zec_2:1, etc., it cannot be a seeing with the outward eye which is spoken of. This is apparent, 1, from the object of vision; it is not supposable that baskets of bad and good figs were in reality placed before the temple; 2, from the question, What seest thou? The question evidently has a proper meaning, when there is a possibility of seeing incorrectly. On the point whether this is supposable in visions in a subjective and objective respect comp. the remarks on Jer_1:11; Jeremiah 3, from the general character of the state in which the prophet must have been while talking with God. Such a conversation as is here reported can only have taken place ἐν πνεύματι. For man cannot see and hear God with the bodily senses. But if as talking with God he is ἐν πνεύματι, then he must also see what God shows him ἐν πνεύματι. For it is not supposable that in such a case there would be a duplicity of perception. The case being thus, Köhler is right in his remark (on Zec_1:7) “wherever the description of a prophetic vision is introduced with the words רָאִיתִי or וָאֶרְאֶה (here הִרְאַני) followed by חִנֵּה, the prophet thus declares that as רֹאֶה or הֹזֶה he has beheld a vision, or had a vision, Isa_30:10.” As to the way in which the Lord opens the inner sense so that it can behold spiritual things, comp. 2Ki_6:17.—Carpenters and smiths. According to 2Ki_24:14-16, Nebuchadnezzar carried away beside the king, his mother and his wives, the princes, the officers, the mighty of the land, the strong and apt for war, and then the craftsmen and smiths. These were all the mighty men of valor, and only the poorest sort of the people were left. Nebuchadnezzar evidently wished to remove all who were fit for war, as well as those who were skilled in the preparation of warlike instruments. The smiths had once before been carried off for a similar purpose by the Philistines (1Sa_13:19). So far all is clear. But who now especially are the מַסְגֵּר? The word occurs only in the accounts of this occurrence: Jer_29:2; 2Ki_24:14; 2Ki_24:16. Besides with the meaning of “custody, prison,” in Isa_24:22; Isa_42:7; Ps. 142:8. The ancient translations greatly differ from each other. The LXX. have here δεσμώτας (comp. Bar_1:9) in 2Ki_24:14; 2Ki_24:16, τὸν συγκλείοντα: Syr. milites, satellites; Chald. janitores (so also Raschi); Arab. mancipia (comp. the interpretation of Hitzig) [who translates “hod-carriers,” and refers the term to the descendants of the aborigines, who were condemned to be wood-splitters and water-carriers in Israel (Deu_29:10; comp. Jos_9:21) deriving it from מַםsocager, and גֵרstranger.—S. R. A.] If we derive the word, which is certainly most natural, from סָגַר, we have either the primitive meaning clausor, shutter, gate-shutter, or the derived: he who prepares what is necessary for shutting, shutting in, i.e., either locksmith; or if we derive from סֻגַּר, those who prepare siege-works, engineers (Ewald). Ewald would certainly also allow the word to be taken in the sense of “purveyor,” by which he understands people “who procure for the king the sup-plies of his kingdom.” But he omits any further proof. Hitzig, Thenius, who are followed by Graf and (as it seems also) by Meier, who translates “daily laborer,” compose the word of מַםtribute-service and גֵּרsojourner, and understand by it common laborers, or hod-carriers, in contrast to skilled artizans. For this interpretation however we find, 1, no analogy in the language, for neither הִדֶּקֶל which alone is adduced by Hitzig, nor מַם עֹבֵד (Jos_16:10) suit here; 2. that in 2Ki_24:14 it is expressly stated that דַּלַּת עַס־הָאָרֶץ, the common people, remained, and to these must have necessarily belonged those classes of the people, who were מַם and גֵּרCompare the connection of the passage (2Ki_24:13-16) and it will be found that Hitzig’s explanation does not agree with it. Since then, grammatically, the derivation from סָגַרclaudere is most natural, as there is further a מַסְגֵּר which signifies “custody,” etc., and consequently the meaning of shutting or of employment in that which serves to shut, or shut up (ex. gr., the bolts of gates, Deu_3:5; 1Ki_4:13; Neh_3:3; Neh_3:6; Neh_3:13, etc.), which is the best founded etymologically, I understand, with most recent Comm. the locksmith, the workman, who makes what serves for shutting up in custody. What may be the relation of מַסְנֵר to הָרָשׁ (carpenters), is certainly obscure. Graf is meanwhile wrong in supposing that something more general is here to be designated. It may just as well be intended to set forth only a kind of artificer.
Jer_24:3-7. Then said the Lord … with their whole heart. The construction is: as I acknowledge these good figs (am pleased with them), so I acknowledge the captives …—for good, i.e., to render them good. Comp. Jer_14:11; Psa_86:17; Neh_5:19; Neh_13:31.—The tertium comparationis is: as one is pleased with good figs and retains them, but throws the bad away, so shall I be pleased with the captives of Judah and retain them, but reject those who remain.—And I will set, etc. Comp. Jer_21:10.—and will bring them back. Comp. rems. on Jer_11:14-17.—and will build, etc. Comp. Jer_1:10.—And they shall be my,etc. Comp. rems. on Jer_11:4.—When they, etc. Not “if” but “ when.” In accordance with the opening words of the verse the thought cannot be expressed hypothetically. Comp. moreover Jer_3:14-17; Jer_4:1-4.
Jer_24:8-10. But like the bad. … their fathers.—Thus saith Jehovah is a parenthesis. The כּי is phonastic at the beginning of a direct sentence (comp. Naegelsb. Gr. § 109, 1, 4), so that the verbum dicendi to be supplied is to be borrowed from Jer_24:5, to which the כּי refers. It is as though the prophet would say, I have already said, I repeat it, that, etc. As to the Jews then already living in Egypt, reference may not be made to Jer_22:11. For those who were carried away with Jehoahaz are certainly included under the promised blessing, Jer_24:5-7, not under the curse. But it is to be supposed that since the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar, after the battle of Carchemish, many Jews fled from Egypt to the king conquered in this battle as to their natural ally, as they also did afterwards (Jeremiah 42. sqq.)—A horror, comp. remarks on Jer_15:4.—A calamity. This after the example of the LXX. is struck out by Hitzig, Ewald, Umbreit, Graf. But why should not the prophet wish to say that the Jews should not merely be given up themselves to destruction but should be the cause of destruction to others also? Has not the Jewish people, sighing under the curse, even to the most recent times developed the bad elements of its native peculiarity in many ways, to the destruction of the nations among whom it has been driven?—A proverb, comp. Jer_29:18; Jer_29:22; Deu_28:37.—And I will send, comp. Jer_29:17-22, where Jeremiah repeats the main thoughts of Jeremiah 24.
Footnotes:
[1]Jer_24:1.—דודהים. This plural form is found in this sense here only (in another sense Gen_30:14). It is to be derived from a sing. דּוּדַי. Comp. Olsh. § 216, d. Elsewhere the plural of דּוּד is דּוּדִים and דְּוָדִים 2Ch_35:13; 2Ki_10:7.
[2]Jer_24:1.—יָעַד is to determine, appoint. The Hiph. is diem dixit, in jus vocavit aliquem (Job_9:19; Jer_49:19; Jer_50:44). The Hoph. cannot therefore mean simply positum, collocatum esse. Seb. Schmidt: duo calathi singulariter a Deo ante templum propositi, ut prophetia inde sumeretur. Gaab: The baskets were appointed; they would not have stood there, if God had not had a special object in it. I also believe that in מועדים is implied the idea of ex mandato. Yet it seems less probable to me that a mandatum speciale is meant, than that the prophet had in view that mandatum generale, of which we read in Exo_23:19; Exo_34:26; Deu_26:2 sqq. The latter passage is particularly important.
[3]Jer_24:2.—אֶחָד. Comp. Naegelsb. Gr., § 82, 4.—Observe the tropical use of the nominative: continens pro contento. Comp. Ebrard, Dogma v. h. A. M. [Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper] I. S. 14.
[4]Jer_24:2.—הבכרות ἄπ. λεγ. On account of תְּאֵנֵי it is to be regarded as the subject: ficus præcocitatum. The early figs are the nicest. Comp. Isa_28:4; Hos_9:10; Mic_7:1.
[5]Jer_24:2.—תאכלנה. The imperf. here as in Jer_24:3; Jer_24:8, might certainly be taken as a simple future;—which are not eaten. The prophet then expresses the certainty, that no one will be in a condition to eat these figs. But the sentence may also be taken with אֲשֶר in the sense of a general declaration; אשׁר is then = quales, which kind of figs cannot be eaten. The imperf. is then used to designate the permanent quality. Comp. Naegelsb. Gr., § 87, d.
[6]Jer_24:5.—הִכִיר = to recognize, with the collateral idea of approval, allowal. Comp. Rth_2:10; Rth_2:19; and the expression הִכִּיר פַנִים in Deu_1:17; Deu_16:19; Pro_24:23.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On Jer_21:2. “King Zedekiah sends word to Jeremiah, that the Lord is to do according to all His miracles, that Nebuchadnezzar may withdraw. A demand rather cavalierly made in such evil circumstances. But the noble are so unfortunate! It is indeed as though it only depended on them to arrange matters with God; as if He were only waiting for them, as if it were a point of honor not to be over-hasty, but first to await a little extremity …. It is a very necessary observance for a servant of the Lord, that he try his superiors, whether there is any trace remaining in them of having been once baptized, well brought up and instructed in the fear of the Lord. If he observe anything of this kind, he must insist upon it and especially not allow them to deal too familiarly with the Judge of all the earth, but plainly demonstrate to them their insufficiency and nothingness, if they measure themselves by Him. Though Zedekiah had spoken so superficially, Jeremiah answered him without hesitation, definitely and positively, and accustomed him to a different manner of dealing with the Lord.” Zinzendorf. “When the ungodly desire God’s help, they commonly appeal not to His saving power to heal them, but to His miraculous power to save them, while they persist in their impenitence.” Starke.
2. On Jer_21:8. “It is pure grace on the part of God, when He leaves to man the choice between the good and the evil; not that it is permitted him to choose the evil, but that he may choose freely the good, which he is under obligation to do, Deu_30:19.” Starke. “God lays before us the way of life and the way of death. The way of life is however always contrary to human reason, and that on which it sees merely death and shame. … If thou wilt save thyself thou must leave the false Jerusalem, fallen under the judgment, and seek thy life where there seems to be only death. He who would save his life must lose it, and he who devotes it for the sake of the truth will save it.” Diedrich.
3. On Jer_21:11-14. “To be such a king is to be an abomination to the Lord, and severe judgment will follow. God appoints magistrates for His service and for the use of men; he who only seeks his own enjoyment in office, is lost. Jerusalem, situated on rocks in the midst of a plain, looks secure; but against God neither rocks avail nor aught else. The fire will break out even in them, and consume all around, together with the forest of cedar-houses in the city. The corruption is seated within, and therefore proceeds from within outwards, so that nothing of the former stock can remain. What shall a government do which no longer bears the sword of justice? What shall a church do which is no longer founded on God’s truth as its only power?” Diedrich. Comp. moreover on the whole of Jeremiah 24. the extended moral reflections of Cyrillus Alex. περὶ τῆς ἐν πνεύματι καὶ ἀληθ. προσκυνήσεως. Lib. I.
4. On Jer_22:1. “Jeremiah is to deliver a sermon at court, in which he reminds the king of his office of magistrate, in which he is to administer justice to every man.” Cramer.
It was no easy task for Jeremiah to go into the lions’ den and deliver such an uncourtly message to him. We are reminded of the prophet Jonah. But Jeremiah did not flee as he did.
5. On Jer_22:1-3. [“But we ought the more carefully to notice this passage, that we may learn to strengthen ourselves against bad examples, lest the impiety of men should overturn our faith; when we see in God’s church things in such disorder, that those who glory in the name of God are become like robbers, we must beware lest we become on this account alienated from true religion. We must, indeed, desert such monsters, but we must take care lest God’s word, through men’s wickedness, should lose its value in our esteem. We ought then to remember the admonition of Christ, to hear the Scribes and Pharisees who sat in Moses’ seat (Mat_23:2).” Calvin.—S. R. A.]
6. On Jer_22:10. [“Dying saints may be justly envied, while living sinners are justly pitied. And so dismal perhaps the prospect of the times may be, that tears even for a Josiah, even for a Jesus, must be restrained, that they may be reserved for ourselves and our children (Luk_23:28).” Henry.—S. R. A.]
“Nequaquam gentilis plangendus est atque Judæus, qui in ecclesia non fuerunt et simul mortui sunt, de quibus Salvator dicit: dimitte mortuos sepelire mortuos suos (Mat_8:22). Sed eos plange, qui per scelera atque peccata egrediuntur de ecclesia et nolunt ultra reverti ad earn damnatione vitiorum.” Hieron. Epist. 46 ad Rusticam. “Nolite flere mortuum, sed plorate raptorem avarum, pecuniæ sitientem et inexplebilem auri cupidinem. Cur mortuos inutiliter ploramus? Eos ploremus, qui in melius mutari possunt.” Basilius Seleucensis. Comp. Basil, Magn. Homil. 4 de Gratiarum actione post dimid.—Ghislerus.
7. On Jer_22:6-9. “God does not spare even the authorities. For though He has said that they are gods, when they do not rightly administer their office they must die like men (Psa_82:6) … No cedars are too high for God, no splendor too mighty; He can destroy all at once, and overturn, and overturn, and overturn. Eze_21:27,” Cramer.
Another passage from which it is seen how perverse and unjustifiable is the illusion that God’s election is a surety against His anger, and a permit to any wilfulness. The individual representatives of the objects of divine election should never forget that God can march over their carcases, and the ruins of their glory, to the fulfilment of His promise, and that He can rebuild on a higher stage, what He has destroyed on a lower. Comp. remarks on Jer_22:24.
8. On Jer_22:13-19. It is blasphemy to imagine that God will be frère et compagnon to all princes as such, and that He has a predilection for them as of His own kind. Does He not say to his majesty the king of Judah, with whom, in respect of the eminence of his dynasty and throne no other prince of earth could compare, that he should be buried like an ass, dragged and cast out before the gates of Jerusalem? This Jehoiakim was however an aristocrat, a heartless, selfish tyrant, who for his own pleasure trampled divine and human rights under foot. If such things were done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?
“He who builds his house with other people’s property, collects stones for his grave.” Cramer.
9. On Jer_22:14. [“It was a proof of luxury when men began to indulge in superfluities. In old times the windows were small; for use only was regarded by frugal men; but afterwards a sort of madness possessed the minds of many, so that they sought to be suspended as it were in the air. And hence they began to have wider windows. The thing in itself, as I have said, is not what God condemns; but we must ever remember, that men never go to excesses in external things, except when their hearts are infected with pride, so that they do not regard what is useful, what is becoming, but are carried away by fondness for excess.” Calvin.—S. R. A.]
10. On Jer_22:15. “God may grant the great lords a preference in eating and drinking and the splendor of royal courts, but it is not His will that these be regarded as the main things, but that true religion, right and justice must have the precedence;—this is the Lord’s work. But cursed is he who does the Lord’s work remissly. Jer_48:10.” Cramer.
11. On Jer_22:17. “Description of haughty, proud, magnificent, merciless and tyrannical lords and rulers, who are accomplices of thieves.” Cramer.
12. On Jer_22:19. [“God would have burial a proof to distinguish us from brute animals even after death, as we in life excel them, and as our condition is much nobler than that of the brute creation. Burial is also a pledge as it were of immortality; for when man’s body is laid hid in the earth, it is as it were a mirror of a future life. Since then burial is an evidence of God’s grace and favor towards mankind, it is on the other hand a sign of a curse, when burial is denied.” Calvin.—S. R. A.]
13. On Jer_22:24. “Great lords often imagine that they not only sit in the bosom of God, but that they are a pearl in His crown; or as the prophet says here, God’s signet-ring. Therefore, it is impossible that they should not succeed in their designs. But God looks not on the person of the princes, and knows the magnificent no more than the poor. Job_34:19.” Cramer.
14. On Jer_22:28. [“What is idolized will, first or last, be despised and broken, what is unjustly honored will be justly contemned, and rivals with God will be the scorn of man. Whatever we idolize we shall be disappointed in, and then shall despise.” Henry.—S. R. A.]
“The compliment is a very poor one for a king, who thinks somewhat of himself, and to whom it in a certain measure pertains that he be honored….But here it is the word of the Lord, and in consideration of these words it is declared in 2Ch_36:12, to be evil on the part of Zedekiah, that he did not humble himself before Jeremiah. Teachers must be much on their guard against assuming such purely prophetic, that is, extraordinary acts. It cost the servants of the Lord many a death, who were obliged thus to employ themselves, and when it is easy for one to ape it without a divine calling he thus betrays his frivolity and incompetence, if not his pride and delusion.” Zinzendorf.
15. On Jer_22:28-30. Irenæus (Adv. Hær. 3:30) uses this passage to prove that the Lord could not have been Joseph’s natural son, for otherwise he would have fallen under the curse of this passage, and appear as one not entitled to dominion (“qui eum dicunt ex Joseph generatum et in eo habere spem, abdicatos se faciunt a regno, sub maledictione et increpatione decidentes, quæ erga Jechoniam et in semen ejus est”). Basil the Great (Epist. ad Amphilochium) endeavors to show that this passage, with its declaration that none of Jeconiah’s descendants should sit on David’s throne, is not in contradiction to the prophecy of Jacob (Gen_49:10), that a ruler should not be lacking from Judah, till He came for whom the nations were hoping. Basil distinguishes in this relation between dominion and royal dignity.—The former continued, the latter ceased, and this period of, so to speak, latent royalty, was the bridge to the present, in which Christ rules in an invisible manner, but yet in real power and glory as royal priest, and at the same time represents Himself as the fulfilment of the hope of the nations. In like manner John of Damascus concludes that according to this passage there could be no prospect of the fulfilment of the promise in Gen_49:10, if Mary had not virgineo modo borne the scion of David, who however was not to occupy the visible throne of David. (Orat. II. in Nativ. B. Mariæ p. med.)—Ambrose finally (Comment. in Ev. Luc. L. III. cap. ult.) raises the question how Jeremiah could say, that ex semine Jechoniæ neminem regnaturum esse, since Christ was of the seed of Jeconiah and reigned? He answers: “Illic (Jer_22:30) futuros ex semine Jechoniæ posteros non negatur et ideo de semine ejus est Christus (comp. Mat_1:11), et quod regnavit Christus, non contra prophetiam est, non enim seculari honore regnavit, nee in Jechoniæ sedibus sedit, sed regnavit in sede David.” Ghislerus.
16. On Jer_23:2. “Nonnulli præsmles gregis quosdam pro peccato a communione ceiciunt, ut pæniteant, sed quali sorte vivere debeant ad melius exhortando non visitant. Quibus congrue increpans sermo divinus comminatur: pastores, qui pascunt populum meum, vos dispersistis gregem meum, ejecistis et non visitastis eum.” Isidor. Hisp. de summo bono she LL. sentt. Cap. 46. Ghislerus.
17. On Jer_23:5-6. Eusebius (Dem. Ev. VII. 9) remarks that Christ among all the descendants of David is the only one, who rules over the whole earth, and everywhere not only preaches justice and righteousness by His doctrine but is Himself also the author of the rising [of the Sun] of righteousness for all, according to Psa_72:7 : ἀνατελεῖ ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις αὐτοῦ δικαιοσύνη, καὶ πλῆθος εἰρήνης ἕως οὗ ἀνταναιρεθῇ ἡ σελήνη (LXX.) Cyril of Alex. (Glaphyr. in Gen. I. p. 133) explains Ἰωσεδέκ as justitia Dei, in so far as we are made righteous in Him, not for the sake of the works of righteousness that we have done, but according to His great mercy. Rom_3:24; Tit_3:5.
18. On Jer_23:6. [“If we regard God in Himself, He is indeed righteous, but not our righteousness. If we desire to have God as our righteousness, we must seek Christ; for this cannot be found except in Him. … Paul says that He has been given or made to us righteousness,—for what end? that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. (1Co_1:30). Since, then, Christ is made our righteousness, and we are counted the righteousness of God in Him, we hence learn how properly and fitly it has been said that He would be Jehovah, not only that the power of His divinity might defend us, but also that we might become righteous in Him, for He is not only righteous for Himself, but He is our righteousness.” Calvin. See also a long note in Wordsworth, to show that Jehovah our Righteousness refers to Christ;—S. R. A.]
“The character of a true church is when the Lytrum, the ransom-money of Jesus Christ, is known and valued by all, and when they have written this secret, foolish and absolutely inscrutable to reason, in the heart with the finger of the living God: that Jesus by His blood has taken away the sins of the world. ‘O let it ne’er escape my thought, at what a price my soul was bought.’ This is the evening and morning prayer of every church, which is a true sister from above.” Zinzendorf.
19. On Jer_23:5-8. “The return under Ezra was also a fulfilment of this promise, but inferior and preliminary: not all came, and those who did come brought their sins back with them. They were still under the Law and had to wait for Righteousness; still in their return they had a pledge that the Messiah was yet to come and prepare the true city of peace. Now, however, all has been long fulfilled and we can enjoy it perfectly, if we have the mind for it. We have now a country of which no tyrant can rob us; our walk and citizenship is in heaven. We have been delivered from all our suffering, when we sit down at the feet of Jesus to hear His word. Then there is a power of resurrection within us, So that we can fly with our souls beyond the world and laugh at all our foes. For Christ has made us righteous by His daily forgiveness, so that we may also bring ourselves daily into heaven. Yea verily, the kingdom of heaven is come very nigh unto us! Jeremiah then longed to see and hear this more nearly, and now we can have it.” Diedrich.
20. On Jer_23:9. “Great love renders God’s servant so ardent, that he deals powerful blows on the seducers. He does not think that he has struck a wasp’s nest and embittered his life here forever, for he has a higher life and gives the lower one willingly for love. Yet all the world will hold him for an incorrigible and mad enthusiast, who spares no one. He says himself that he is as it were drunk with God and His word, when he on the other hand contemplates the country.” Diedrich.
21. On Jer_23:11. “They are rogues. They know how to find subterfuges, and I would like to see him who accuses a false and unfaithful teacher, and manages his own case so that he does not himself come into the dilemma.” Zinzendorf.
22. On Jer_23:13-14. “In the prophets of Samaria I see folly. This is the character which the Lord gives to error, false religion, heterodoxy. But in the prophets of Jerusalem I find abomination. This is the description of the or thodox, when they apply their doctrine, so that either the wicked are strengthened or no one is converted.” Zinzendorf.
23. On Jer_23:15. “From the prophets of Jerusalem hypocrisy goes forth into all the land. This is the natural consequence of the superiority, which the consistories, academies, ministers, etc., have and in due measure ought to have, that when they become corrupt they communicate their corruption to the whole region, and it is apparent in the whole land what sort of theologians sit at the helm.” Zinzendorf.
24. On Jer_23:16. Listen not to the words of the prophets, they deceive you. Luther says (Altenb. Tom. II. p. 330): “But a Christian has so much power that he may and ought to come forward even among Christians and teach, where he sees that the teacher himself is wanting,” etc.; and “The hearers altogether have the right to judge and decide concerning all doctrine. Therefore the priests and liveried Christians have snatched this office to themselves; because, if this office remained in the church, the aforesaid could retain nothing for their own.” (Altenb. Tom. II. p. 508).—The exercise of this right on the part of members of the church has its difficulties. May not misunderstanding, ignorance, even wickedness cause this to be a heavy and unjust pressure on the ministers of the word, and thus mediately tend to the injury of the church? Certainly. Still it is better for the church to exercise this right than not to do so. The former is a sign of spiritual life, the latter of spiritual death. It will be easier to find a corrective for some extravagances than to save a church become religiously indifferent from the fate of Laodicea (Rev_3:16).
25. On Jer_23:16. [“But here a question may be raised, How can the common people understand that some speak from God’s mouth, and that others propound their own glosses? I answer, That the doctrine of the Law was then sufficient to guide the minds of the people, provided they closed not their eyes; and if the Law was sufficient at that time, God does now most surely give us a clearer light by His prophets, and especially by His Gospel.” Calvin—S. R. A.]
26. On Jer_23:17. “The pastors, who are welcome and gladly seen at a rich man’s table, wish him in fact long life, good health, and all prosperity. What they wish they prophesy. This is not unnatural; but he who is softened by it is ill-advised.” Zinzendorf.
27. On Jer_23:21. [“There is a twofold call; one is internal, the other belongs to order, and may therefore be called external or ecclesiastical. But the external call is never legitimate, except it be preceded by the internal; for it does not belong to us to create prophets, or apostles, or pastors, as this is the special work of the Holy Spirit. … But it often happens that the call of God is sufficient, especially for a time. For when there is no church, there is no remedy for the evil, except God raise up extraordinary teachers.” Calvin.—S. R. A.]
28. On Jer_23:22. “If I knew that my teacher was a most abominable miscreant, personally, and in heart the worst enemy of God in his parish; so long as, for any reason, he preaches, expounds, develops, inculcates the word of God; even though he should betray here and there in his expressions, that this word was not dwelling in him; if only he does not ex professo at one time throw down what at another time he teaches of good and true quasi aliud agendo: I assure you before the Lord that I should fear to censure his preaching.” Zinzendorf.
29. On Jer_23:23. “ God’s essential attribute is Omnipresence. For He is higher than heaven, what canst thou do? deeper than hell, what canst thou know? Longer than the earth and broader than the sea (Job_4:8). And He is not far from every one of us (Act_17:27).” Cramer.—“We often think God is quite far from us, when He is yet near to us, has us in His arms, presses us to His heart and kisses us.” Luther.—“ When we think the Sun of righteousness, Jesus, is not risen, and is still behind the mountain, and will not come to us, He is yet nearest to us. The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart. (Psa_34:19) ”—“Deus et omni et nullo loco “—” Cuncta Deus replens molem se fundit in omnem.” MS. notes to my copy of Cramer’s Bibel.—“ Si vis peccare, O homo, quære tibi locum, ubi Deus non videat.” Augustine.
30. On Jer_23:28. [“When any one rejects the wheat because it is covered with chaff, and who will pity him who says that he has indeed wheat on his floor, but that it is mixed with chaff, and therefore not fit for food? … If we be negligent, and think that it is a sufficient excuse for despising the Word of God, because Satan brings in his fallacies, we shall perish in our sloth like him who neglects to cleanse his wheat that he might turn it to bread.” Calvin.—S. R. A.]
He who cannot restrain his mouth or his ink let him expectorate. But let him say openly and honestly that they are his own dreams, which he preaches. The false prophets certainly know that mere falsehood is empty straw. They therefore always mingle some of the genuine word of God amongst it. An unavailing mixture! It is in this mingling that Satan’s highest art is displayed, so that he at the same time furthers his own work and testifies against himself. Comp. Genesis 3
31. On Jer_23:29. God’s word is the highest reality, life and power, while the dreams of the false prophets are pretence, death and weakness. God’s word is therefore compared to a fire which burns, warms, and enlightens, so that it burns up the hardest flint, melts the thickest ice, illuminates the deepest obscurities. It is compared further to a hammer which crushes the hardest rocks into sand.—He who mingles God’s wheat among his straw, will find that the wheat will become fire and burn up the straw (1Co_3:12-15). He Who handles the word of the Lord purely, let him not despair if he sees before him hearts of adamant (Zec_7:12). He who seeks peace is not ashamed to bow beneath the hammer of the word. For the destructive power of the word applies to that in us which is opposed to God, while the God-related elements are loosed and set free by those very crushing blows.—He, however, to whom the peace of God is an object of derision, may feed on the straw of this world. But how will it be when finally the day comes that God will come upon him with fire and hammer? What then remains to him as the result of his straw-diet, which is in a condition to withstand the blows of the hammer and the fire?
Help, Lord, against Thy scornful foes,
Who seek our souls to lead astray;
Whose mockeries at mortal woes
Will end in terrible dismay!
Grant that Thy holy word may root
Deep in our hearts, and richer fruit
May ever bear to endless day.
“God’s word converts, all other doctrine befools.” Luther.
32. On Jer_23:29. “God’s word in general is like a fire: the more it is urged the more widely and brightly it extends. God has caused His word to be proclaimed to the world as a matter, which they can dispense with as little as fire. Fire often smoulders long in secret before it breaks out, thus the power of the divine word operates in its time. God’s word can make people as warm as if glowing coals lay upon them; it shines as brightly upon them, as if a lamp were held under their eyes; it tells every one the truth and purifies from all vices. He who deals evilly with God’s word burns himself by it, he who opposes it is consumed by it. But the word of God is as little to blame as a lamp or a fire when an unskilful person is burned by it. Yet it happens that often it will not be suffered in the world, then there is fire in all the streets. That is the unhappy fire of persecution, which is kindled incidentally in the world by the preaching of the Gospel.” Jos. Conr. Schaller, Pastor at Cautendorf, Sermons on the Gospels, 1742.
33. On Jer_23:30. “Teachers and preachers are not to steal their sermons from other books, but take them from the Bible, and testify that which they speak from their inward experience (Joh_3:11). False teachers steal God’s word, inventing a foreign meaning for it, and using this for the palliation of their errors.” Starke—“Hinc illi ζῆλοι at auctions, who can obtain this or that good book, this or that manuscript? Here they are thus declared to be plagiarios; and they are necessarily so because they are not taught of God. But I would rather they would steal from true men of God than from each other.”—Zinzendorf.
34. On Jer_23:33-40. “ When the word of God becomes intolerable to men, then men in their turn become intolerable to our Lord God; yea, they are no more than inutile pondus terræ, which the land can no more bear, therefore they must be winnowed out, Jer_15:17.” Cramer.
35. On Jer_24:5-7. “ He who willingly and readily resigns himself to the will of God even to the cross, may escape misfortune. But he who opposes himself to the hand of God cannot escape.” Cramer.—“The captives are dearest to God. By the first greater affliction He prepares their souls for repentance and radical conversion, so that He has in them again His people and inheritance. O the gracious God, that He allows even those who on account of sin must be so deeply degraded and rendered slaves, even in such humiliation to be His people! The captives are forgiven their opposition to God; they are separated from the number of nations existing in the world, politically they are dead and banished to the interior. Now, God will show them what His love can do; they shall return, and in true nearness to God be His true Israel.” Diedrich.
36. On Jer_24:7. [“Since He affirms that He would give them a heart to understand, we hence learn that men are by nature blind, and also that when they are blinded by the devil they cannot return to the right way, and that they cannot be otherwise capable of light than by having God to illuminate them by His Spirit. … This passage also shows, that we cannot really turn to God until we acknowledge Him to be the Judge; for until the sinner sets himself before God’s tribunal he will never be touched with the feeling of true repentance. … Though God rules the whole world. He yet declares that He is the God of the Church; and the faithful whom He has adopted He favors with this high distinction, that they are His people; and He does this that they may be persuaded that there is safety in Him, according to what is said by Habakkuk, ‘Thou art our God, we shall not die’ (Hab_1:12). And of this sentence Christ Himself is the best interpreter, when He says, that He is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Luk_20:38).” Calvin.—S. R. A.]
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
1. On Jer_21:8. This text may be used on all occasions when an important decision is to be made or on the entrance on a new section of life, as, e. g., at synods, diets, New Years, beginning of the church-year, at confirmations, weddings, installations, etc. What the present day demands and promises: I. It demands from us an important choice. II. It promises us, according as we choose, life or death.
2. On Jer_22:2-9. In how far the divine election is conditional and unconditional. I. It is conditional with respect to individual elected men, places, things. For 1, these become partakers of the salvation promised by the election only by behaviour well-pleasing to God; 2, if they behave in a manner displeasing to God, the election does not protect them from destruction. II. The election is unconditional with respect to the eternal ideas lying at the foundation of the single appearances, and their absolute realizations.
3. On Jer_22:24. [Payson:—“The punishment of the impenitent inevitable and justifiable. I. To mention some awful instances in which God has verified this declaration: (a), the apostate angels; (b) our first parents; (c) destruction of mankind by the flood; (d) the children of Israel; (e) Moses, David, the disobedient prophet, Christ. II. Some of the reasons for such a declaration. Not a disposition to give pain or desire for revenge. It is the nature and tendency of sin to produce misery.”—S. R. A.]
4. On Jer_23:5-6. The Son of David. What the prophet declares of Him is fourfold: 1. He will Himself be righteous; 2. He will rule well as king and execute judgment and righteousness; 3. He will be our righteousness; 4. Under Him shall Judah be helped and Israel dwell safely.
5. On Jer_23:14. [Lathrop: “The horrible guilt of those who strengthen the hands of the wicked. 1. All sin is horrible in its nature. 2. This is to oppose the government of the Almighty. 3. It directly tends to the misery of mankind. 4. It supports the cause of the Evil Spirit. 5. It is to become partakers of their sins. 6. It is horrible as directly contrary to the command of God, and marked with His peculiar abhorrence.”—S. R. A.]
6. On Jer_23:23-24. The Omnipresence of God. 1. What it means. God is everywhere present, (a). He fills heaven and earth; (b) there is no removal from Him in space; (c) nothing is hidden from Him. 2. There is in this for us (a) a glorious consolation, (b) an earnest admonition. [Charnock, Jortin, and Wesley have sermons on this text, all of very similar outline. The following are Jortin’s practical conclusions; “ This doctrine 1. Should lead us to seek to resemble God’s perfections 2. Should deter us from sin. 3. Should teach us humility. 4. Should encourage us to reliance and contentment, to faith and hope.”—S. R. A.]
7. On Jer_23:29-30. God’s Word and man’s word. 1. The former is life and power (wheat, fire, hammer). The latter pretence and weakness (dream, straw). 2. The two are not to be mixed with each other. [Cecil: This shows 1. The vanity of all human imaginations in religion, (a). What do they afford to man? (b). How much do they hinder? 2. The energy of spiritual truth. Let us entreat God that our estimate may be practical.—S. R. A.]
8. On Jer_24:1-10. The good and bad figs an emblem of humanity well-pleasing and displeasing to God. 1. The prisoners and broken-hearted are, like the good figs, well-pleasing to God. For (a) they know the Lord and turn to Him; (b) He is their God and they are His people. 2. Those who dwell proudly and securely are displeasing to God, like the bad figs. For (a) they live on in foolish blindness; (b) they challenge the judgment of God.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 5, 6, 7 figs . . . first ripe--the "boccora," or early…
figs . . . first ripe--the "boccora," or early fig (see on Isa 28:4). Baskets of figs used to be offered as first-fruits in the temple. The good figs represent Jeconiah and the exiles in Babylon; the bad, Zedekiah and the obstinate Jews in Judea. They are called good and bad respectively, not in an absolute, but a comparative sense, and in reference to the punishment of the latter. This prophecy was designed to encourage the despairing exiles, and to reprove the people at home, who prided themselves as superior to those in Babylon and abused the forbearance of God (compare Jer 52:31-34).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 6 This passage is distinguished, first of all, by the…
THE SYMBOL — TWO FIG-BASKETS, 1-3.
This passage is distinguished, first of all, by the very definite note of time with which it commences, and its contemptuous treatment of the reigning sovereign, Zedekiah. Those who are gone into captivity are the good figs upon which God will continue to look with kindly remembrance, and will bring them again to their own land; while those that remain are but as refuse and worthless fruit.
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1. Showed me — In prophetic vision.
Set before the temple of the Lord — That is, specially and eminently in the divine presence. Into this place Israel had come by the divine election, and she must endure the tests appropriate to the position.
The carpenters and smiths — Carried to Babylon, both to weaken Jerusalem and to increase the resources of Babylon. 2Ki_24:16.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 1. For the symbol, as probably indicating not a…
1. For the symbol, as probably indicating not a mental picture but actual baskets to which Jeremiah’s attention was directed, cp. note on Jer_1:11 f. See also the kindred symbol in Amo_8:1.
Nebuchadrezzar] See on Jer_21:2.
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Jeconiah] See on Jer_22:24.
smiths] The exact meaning of the Hebrew is unknown.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–7 (1) The Lord shewed me . . .—The chapter…
XXIV.
(1) The Lord shewed me . . .—The chapter belongs to the same period as the two preceding, i.e., to the reign of Zedekiah, after the first capture of Jerusalem and the captivity of the chief inhabitants. The opening words indicate that the symbols on which the prophet looked were seen in vision, as in Amo_7:1-4; Amo_7:7; Zec_1:8; Zec_2:1, and the symbols of Jer_1:11; Jer_1:13; or, if seen with the eyes of the body, were looked on as with the prophet-poet’s power of finding parables in all things. The fact that the figs were set before the Temple of the Lord is significant. They were as a votive offering, first-fruits (Exo_23:19; Deu_26:2) or tithes brought to the Lord of Israel. A like imagery had been used by Amos (Amo_8:1-2) with nearly the same formulæ.
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The carpenters and smiths.—See 2Ki_24:14. The word for “carpenters” includes craftsmen of all kinds. The deportation of these classes was partly a matter of policy, making the city more helpless by removing those who might have forged weapons or strengthened its defences, partly, doubtless, of ostentation, that they might help in the construction of the buildings with which Nebuchadnezzar was increasing the splendour of his city. So Esar-haddon records how he made his captives “work in fetters, in making bricks” Records of the Past, iii. p. 120). So, from the former point of view, the Philistines in the time of Samuel either carried off the smiths of Israel or forbade the exercise of their calling (1Sa_13:19). The word for “smith” is found in Isa_24:22; Isa_42:7 in the sense of “prison,” but, as applied to persons, only here and in the parallel passage of 2Ki_24:14; 2Ki_24:16. It has been differently interpreted as meaning “locksmiths,” “gatekeepers,” “strangers,” “hod-carriers,” and “day-labourers.” Probably the rendering of the E.V. is right.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 5, 6, 7 Again Jeremiah"s ungrateful task is to take up an…
Again Jeremiah"s ungrateful task is to take up an attitude of direct opposition to the king, (comp. Jer_22:13-30) though, indeed, Zedekiah personally is so weak and dependent on others that he neither deserves nor receives a special rebuke. He and all the people that are left are likened to very bad figs, the good figs the exiles having been picked out and sent to Babylon, whence they will one day be restored. The vision is purely an interior process. This is indicated, not only by the phrase, "Jehovah showed me", (comp. Amo_7:1, Amo_7:4, 7 8:1) but by the contents of the vision. Two baskets of figs were set before, etc. (comp. Amo_8:1-3) The description is apparently based on the law of firstfruits, (comp. Deu_26:2) where the "basket" is mentioned, though not the word here used. The baskets were set down in readiness to be examined by the priests, who rigorously rejected all fruit that was not sound. The princes of Judah. A short phrase for all the leading men, whether members of the royal family or heads of the principal families. (comp. Jer_27:20) The carpenters and smiths; rather, the craftsmen and smiths. ("craftsmen" includes workers in stone and metal as well as wood; the Hebrew word is rendered "smith" in 1Sa_13:19)
Vers. 1-10. Two baskets of figs.
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I MORALLY MEN ARE DIVISIBLE INTO TWO DISTINCT CLASSES. The two baskets of figs represent two classes of Jews: the basket of good figs, Jeconiah and his followers; the basket of bad figs, Zedekiah and his party. The great distinction between these was moral. There were princes in both classes; yet the one stood far higher in the sight of God than the other.
1. The deepest line of cleavage which runs down through all sections of mankind is moral; all other separating marks are more superficial.
2. There are in the main but two classes the good and the bad though, of course, within each of these great varieties occur.
3. Both of these classes tend to grow extreme. The good figs are very good, the bad are very bad. Character is tendency. As character develops it moves further on along the lines on which it is founded. Good men incline to grow better and bad men worse. Like the rivers which flow down the two sides of a great watercourse, lives that begin in similar circumstances and are near together for a season, if they once diverge, are likely to separate more widely as the years pass.
II THE REST MEN MAY BE THE GREATEST SUFFERERS. The good figs represent the Jews who suffered most severely from the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar, who were torn from their homes, robbed of their property, driven into captivity; the bad figs represent the seemingly more fortunate Jews over whose head the tide of invasion passes, leaving them still in their homes and in quiet, and also those who escaped from it entirely by a flight into Egypt. We may often notice that very good people are not only not spared, but suffer the most severe calamities. The sinless One was a "man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." No greater mistake can be made than that of the three friends of Job. Great misfortunes are certainly not indications of great guilt; often of the reverse.
1. High character may directly invoke trouble. It rouses the opposition of the wicked; it feels called to dangerous tasks and to a mission which excites enmity; it maintains a fidelity that excludes many avenues of escape which would be open to men of lower moral principles.
2. God may bless and honor his better children by sending to them the severer trials. Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth. Therefore chastisement is an evidence of God"s love. Good men should understand this, and not be surprised at the advent of trouble, but expect it; not be dismayed at the incongruity of it, but recognize its fitness; not despair of themselves, and think that they must be hypocrites after all, nor doubt and distrust God, but submit to what is clearly foretold and wisely arranged.
III GOD LOOKS FAVORABLY ON THOSE WHO SUBMIT TO HIS CHASTISEMENTS. The good figs represent those Jews who obey the message of Jeremiah and submit to the invasion of the Chaldeans as to a Divine chastisement; the bad figs stand for those Jews who resist. It requires faith to recognize the wisdom and duty of submission. On the face of it such conduct would appear unpatriotic and cowardly, while resistance would seem noble and brave. It may take more courage, however, to submit than to resist. There is a yielding which is calm and reasonable and really brave, since it involves the curbing of instinctive combativeness and the pursuit of an unpopular course-one sure to be misunderstood and to provoke calumny. The sole guide must be sought in the question of what is right, what is God"s will. We are not called to a fatalistic passiveness. There are circumstances in which self-defense or flight may be evidently right. What we are to submit to is not all opposition, all possible trouble, but God"s will, the trouble which we know he has sanctioned. All the good fruit of chastisement will be lost if we rebel against it. No greater proof of faith in the goodness of God and loyalty to the majesty of God can be found than a quiet, unmurmuring acceptance of his harder requirements.
IV THE HARDEST SUFFERING MAY LEAD TO THE HAPPIEST RESULTS. The captives are to be restored. Those Jews who remain in the land are ultimately to be driven forth as "a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse." The short, sharp suffering will end in ultimate good. The temporary escape will be followed by final ruin.
1. God"s chastisements are temporary; they will give place to lasting blessedness. The present affliction is light just because it endures "but for a moment". (2Co_4:17) Even if they outlast the present life, what is this brief span of earthly trial compared with the blessedness of an eternity?
2. God"s chastisements work our good. They directly tend to produce the happier future. The tearful sowing is the cause of the joyful harvest. The spiritual improvement wrought in the soul by the discipline of sorrow is at once a source of future blessedness and a justification for it. "It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
3. A culpable avoidance of Divine chastisement is highly dangerous. The escape from temporary trouble must incur greater future trouble; for
(1) it prevents the chastisement from working the good in us which would have led to a happier future, and
(2) it adds a new offence of direct rebellion against God which must invoke upon the head of the offender a terrible judgment.
HOMILIES BY A.F. MUIR Vers. 1-10. The two baskets of figs; or, predetermining influences.
These are not to be understood of the opposite development of character in two sets of persons in slightly differing circumstances, but rather of the primary influence of Divine faith as contrasted with the want of it amidst the trials of life. The people left behind were disposed to felicitate themselves over their brethren who had been carried off into Chaldea, but this impression is corrected by Jeremiah. The exiles were the true people of God, and were to be under his constant supervision and loving care; the others were to be cast off, to become a prey to inner corruption and the unchecked destructive influences of the world.
I THE MYSTERY OF THE DIVINE ELECTION. From comparatively similar circumstances to evolve distinct types of character and destiny. Out of the same clay to mold the saint and the sinner. It is the old lesson of the potter in another form. There is nothing in a man himself to account for God"s favor. He chooseth whom he will and rejecteth whom he will. Yet is it true that he willeth not the death of a sinner, but rather that all should come unto him and live.
II THE MANNER IN WHICH ELECTIVE GRACE MANIFESTS ITSELF.
1. Recalling. (Ver. 6) How unlikely under the circumstances! Yet rendered credible by the remarkable individuality of the Jewish people from age to age. Reconstituting. (Ver. 6) The figure is twofold building and life-growth. (cf. Eph_2:21, Eph_2:22) Spiritually recreating. (Ver. 7) The aim of the previous discipline; but the beginning of great national glory and blessedness. For connection of these processes, cf. Rom_8:28
2. Circumstances are made to subserve a merciful purpose. The immediate condition of the Chaldean exiles might appear a harder one than that of their compatriots at home; but in the end this would turn to their salvation. Not only will God overrule all things for the good of his people, but he will use them for their spiritual education. The influence of circumstances is thus shown to depend for the most part upon the spiritual state of those who are surrounded by them.
3. Circumstances are appointed for the destruction of the obstinately impenitent. Moral reprobation and political annihilation were to come upon these. There would be no swerving or slackening in the execution of their sentence. This is agreeable with the character of him who hates sin with an eternal hatred. The climax of misery here indicated is but a faint suggestion of that which will follow upon rejection of the gospel. And yet how simple are the elements of such a punishment! God has but to withdraw his grace, and the inner depravity of nature will work unchecked its fearful consequences, accelerating and directing the external circumstances of life. And all this has another aspect, which is full of comfort to those who are spiritually inclined. The faintest dawn of repentance is the opening of the "door of hope;" and when the heart is changed the tendency of untoward circumstance at once is altered, and the positive blessings of God again return. M.
Vers. 1-10. Calamity with God and without him.
I To THE CHILD OF GRACE.
1. It is a chastening.
2. A restoration.
II To THE UNGODLY.
1. The influence depreciating character.
2. A source of restlessness and fresh transgression.
3. An ever-increasing evil.
4. An ultimate destruction. M.
Vers. 1-10. Punished for salvation; left alone for destruction.
A general principle of God"s moral government. The flower of Judah, about to be deported to Babylon, are followed by the prophet with wistful gaze. They are the seed of the true Israel; whereas those who are allowed to remain quietly at home are to be of no account in God"s purpose.
I HOW DIFFERENT OFTEN ARE THE EXTERNAL FROM THE SPIRITUAL PROSPECTS OF MEN! Jeconiah and his companions might have been pitied by their friends left behind. The outward position of any one is no index of his relations with God.
II PRESENT TRIAL MAY BE A PROOF OF DIVINE LOVE, AND PRESENT IMMUNITY FROM MISFORTUNE IS NOT ALWAYS TO BE TAKEN AS AN EVIDENCE OF DIVINE FAVOR. "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." Punishment was needed to atone for the past and purify for the future. The exile in Babylon, with its deprivation of political and religious privilege, was a new point of view for the captives. It is a familiar experience to hear men who have done well in the world, or who have had a comparatively smooth life, say, "God has blessed us." This statement is often open to question. God may simply let alone those whom he has given up. The lethargy induced in many by good fortune is to be guarded against. Count them happy that "endure, as seeing him who is invisible." Inward depravity will soon work the destruction of those in whom it remains.
III THE GLORY OF THE DIVINE IN MAN IS EVOLVED FROM THE HUMILIATION OF THE HUMAN. A mere remnant. How few of those who went forth would return! Children"s children might be blessed, but not they themselves. And even then it would require not only reorganization, but rebirth in spirituality. It is ever so. A profound and radical change is needed ere any one can become a member of the true eternal Israel. Israel after the flesh is sentenced to death, that Israel after the Spirit may live forever. M.
HOMILIES BY S. CONWAY Vers. 1-10. The two baskets of figs; or, our character and destiny independent of our circumstances.
I THE SYMBOLS EMPLOYED. The two baskets of figs one very good, the other very evil. But:
1. They had each the same advantages and disadvantages. The same seed, soil, training, climate, sunshine, and other influences teeming on them.
2. They were of directly opposite character. (Ver. 2)
II THE PEOPLE REPRESENTED BY THEM. The men of Judah and Jerusalem. Now:
1. The circumstances of all these were the same. Parentage, religion, teachers, disciplines, privileges, opportunities.
2. But some of these people were symbolized by the good figs, and the other by the evil. Those who had been carried off to Babylon were the good; those who remained still in Jerusalem were the evil.
3. The reverse results might have been looked for. For the good had been dealt with more sternly than the evil. How terrible and sad their lot appeared! Torn away from all their wonted privileges; made to endure a fate which others deserved far more than they; surrounded with idolaters and blasphemers of God. But the evil continued in the possession of all those aids to religion and piety of which those others were deprived. So that the circumstances of the good were less favorable, and those of the evil far more so. Exile, which might have been thought to injure the captives, had done them good; whilst exemption from it, which might have been thought to benefit the evil, had wrought them harm. "With the exiles were some of the choicest spirits of the nation. Ezekiel, second only to Jeremiah himself in the prophets of this epoch; and, probably, the ancestor of Mordecai; and Daniel, with his three companions." "The exiles became humble, repentant, reformed. The resident Jews became insolent, self-secure, defiant. The former became worthy of comparison with the first ripe figs; the latter as the "naughty figs, which could not be eaten.
III THE LESSONS TAUGHT THEREBY. That character and destiny do not depend on circumstances. We should have thought that either all would be alike, or else that the characters and destinies would have been the reverse of what they were.
1. Let the good who may be placed in adverse circumstances take encouragement from this fact. They can surmount and triumph over all the evil influences which surround and oppose them (cf. ver. 7)
2. And the evil are to take warning. Prolonged privilege and opportunity have no necessary saving power. Such advantages may leave them worse than before. It was so here.
IV OBSERVE THE GREAT ILLUSTRATION OF THE TRUTH TAUGHT HERE IN CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH.
1. Christ was "as a root out of a dry ground." How utterly opposed to all prospect of his becoming great, and his Name above every name, were the early circumstances in his history! And yet he has triumphed over all.
2. And so with the history of the Church. It was small as a grain of mustard seed," feeble as "sheep amidst wolves," was as a thing of naught and despised. And yet what has it not become, what will it not become? And what is true of Christ and his Church shall be true likewise of all that are his. "Fear not, little flock," said our Lord; "it is the Father"s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. C.
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG Vers. 1-10. The good and bad figs.
I CONSIDER THE FIGS GENERALLY. We cannot, of course, say why figs should be chosen rather than another fruit, though the choice can hardly be a mere accident. Some reason probably appeared to the observant of that time which we are without sufficient information to discover. Possibly the goodness of good fruits was more obvious against the badness of bad ones, in the case of the fig than in the case of other fruits. It is to be noticed also that the figure chosen to set forth the difference between the good and the bad in Israel is taken from fruit. It was something presented as the result of growth and in connection with culture. The question was suggested how such a difference should come between the good and the bad. For if trees of the same sort grow in the same soil and have the same attention, and the same external influences, how comes some of the fruit to be very good and some very bad? Notice also the sharpness of the distinction . These fruits were either good or bad. To be excluded from one is to be included in the other. There is no third, no medium class. This exactly agrees with the way of speaking in the New Testament, especially by Jesus himself: e.g. the seed in the good and bad ground, the sheep and goats, the good kinds of fish and the bad ones, the five wise and the five foolish virgins. It is of the first importance to bear in mind that the imperceptible gradations, as we reckon them, count for nothing with God. There are only two kinds of hearts, the good and the bad.
II CONSIDER THE BLESSINGS ON THAT CLASS IN ISRAEL SET FORTH BY THE GOOD FIGS. Painful external experiences cannot destroy the blessing coming from satisfactory internal character. These people represented by the good figs might say, "If we are indeed as good figs, why make us pass through such pains?" To this it might be answered, in the first place, that it was because of this very goodness that God thus treated them. They were being pruned and cleansed that they might bring forth more fruit. Secondly, when they looked on the fate of those represented by the bad figs, even captivity in a distant land would be seen as a blessing. God bends every word that he here speaks through his prophet so as to form a total of strong consolation and hope.
1. Though these people are called captives of Judah, yet this is only the conventional mode of description. In reality, Jehovah himself sends them into the land of the Chaldeans. So Joseph was made to feel that it was God who had brought him into Egypt.
2. God"s eye is upon his people for good. That which God sees to be good he always regards for good. Whosoever has, to him is given more. Note, too, that the people were not merely remembered, as if God had stayed behind in the land of Israel. He was equally in Israel watching over it against the day of his people"s return, and in the land of the Chaldeans watching over his faithful ones there.
3. There is to be in due time a restoration. He who sends away can also bring back. The external circumstances of his people are completely under his control. He was speaking to those in whose history was written down all the marvelous things of the Exodus from Egypt. There is to be a Divine building and planting. What others had built God had pulled down, what others had planted he had uprooted. Every plant not of the heavenly Father"s planting must be rooted up. All this was done, not for any delight God took in the ruin and the wilderness, but that a nation might be built up in righteousness, and bring forth only good fruit.
4. The giving of a true knowledge of God. God must give this knowledge, for it can only come to a renewed heart. The mere exhibition of God"s name and person to the natural man is not enough. There may be very elaborate intellectual conceptions of Deity without the slightest profit or comfort. When the renewed heart begins to know, then God begins to be truly known. His love must not only be set before us, but must be shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit given to us.
III THE CURSE ON THOSE SET FORTH BY THE BAD FIGS. There is the greatest possible contrast between the treatment of good fruit and bad fruit. And so there was the greatest possible contrast between the treatment of the people taken to Babylon and the treatment of those remaining at home and nearer home. Upon the surface and at the first aspect it might seem as if these latter had the best of it. And, indeed, there might be no immediate way of making clear the difference. But a difference there assuredly was, and every succeeding year would manifest and emphasize it the more. In the mean time here stood the contrast between the good and bad figs, which would be quite enough for the eye of faith. How the history of the Jewish people justifies the bitter words of vers. 9 and 10! Again and again the Gentile has treated the Jew according to the words of this prophecy, and found in them and similar words a justification of his treatment, not, of course, that the prophecy did really justify the treatment, but God could speak beforehand of the way in which human passions would assuredly work. Y.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 5, 6 The princes of Judah, with the carpenters and smiths…
Jer_24:1
The princes of Judah, with the carpenters and smiths from Jerusalem.
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The nobility of work
I. All labour becomes truly noble regarded as the service of God. To regard labour simply as a stern necessity of human life is to convert the workman into a slave, and his toil into drudgery. The glory of the angels is found in the fact they are messengers of God. And all the work of our hand attains its highest glory wrought out in the love and fear of God. The apostle gives us the true point of view (Eph_6:6-8). Here we have God the Taskmaster. Doing the will of God. Not only what we are pleased to call our highest work for Him, but our lowliest toil also, serving Him with two brown hands as Gabriel serves in the presence of the throne with two white wings. Here we have also God the Paymaster. Whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord. God is a grand paymaster, He is a sure one, and rich beyond all hope are they who do His bidding. In the class-meeting a poor man said to me, It was very strange, sir, but the other day, whilst I was looking after my horses, God visited me and wonderfully blessed me; it was very strange He should visit me like this in a stable. Not at all, said I, it is a fulfilment of the prophecy: In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses Holiness unto the Lord, &c. In an old book I was reading the other day the writer laughed at some commoner who had just been made a peer, because he had his coat of arms burned and painted even upon his shovels and wheelbarrows. In my reckoning, that was a very fine action, and full of significance. If a man is a true man he is a man of God, a prince of God; and he ought to pat the stamp of his nobility on the commonest things with which he has to do.
II. All labour becomes truly noble regarded as a ministry to humanity. Few men, comparatively, realise the social bearing of their toil, and therefore know it as an insipid thing, when in truth it is their rich privilege to taste in all their work the joy of a good Samaritan, for all conscientious work is an essential philanthropy. With one hand we work for ourselves, with the other for the race, and it is one of the purest joys of life to remember this. Let us be blind workers no more, but consciously, lovingly, do our daily work, rejoicing in the social glory and fruitfulness of it. Princes, smiths, carpenters, let us not forget we too toil for the larger happiness of all men, so shall we prove in our toil some of the sublime pleasure Howard knew when he opened the door of the prison, that Wilberforce felt striking off the fetters of the slave, that Peabody tasted when he built homes for the poor.
III. All labour becomes truly noble regarded as a discipline to our higher nature. Many, alas! sink with their work, but the Divine design in the duty of life was the perfection of the worker. Our toil is to develop our whole nature. Our physical being. Our work is neither to pollute nor destroy, but to purify and build up the temple of the body. Sweat does not mean blood, and there is a blessing in the curse. Our work should develop our intellectual self also. Much of our business may become a direct mental education, and it need never hinder the flowering of the mind. But chiefly the work of life ought to subserve our spiritual perfecting. In all true work the soul works and gains in purity and power by its work. The carpenters work tests his moral qualities, and Whilst he builds with brick and stone, timber and glass, he may build up also character with silver, gold, and precious stones; the smith fashions his soul whilst he shapes the iron on ringing anvil; the husbandman may enrich his heart whilst he adorns the landscape; and the weaver at the loom weave two fabrics at once, one that the moth shall fret, the other of gold and fine needlework, immortal raiment for the spirit. The King of glory has consecrated the workshop by His presence and glorified work by His example. (W. L. Watkinson.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v2 "Very bad figs too bad to be eaten."- Jer_24:2;…
CHAPTER XXVII
SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS CORRUPTION
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"Very bad figs too bad to be eaten."- Jer_24:2; Jer_24:8; Jer_29:17
PROPHETS and preachers have taken the Israelites for Gods helots, as if the Chosen People had been made drunk with the cup of the Lords indignation, in order that they might be held up as a warning to His more favoured children throughout after ages. They seemed depicted as "sinners above all men," that by this supreme warning the heirs of a better covenant may be kept in the path of righteousness. Their sin is no mere inference from the long tragedy of their national history, "because they have Suffered such things"; their own prophets and their own Messiah testify continually against them. Religious thought has always singled out Jeremiah as the most conspicuous and uncompromising witness to the sins of his people. One chief feature of his mission was to declare Gods condemnation of ancient Judah. Jeremiah watched and shared the prolonged agony and overwhelming catastrophes of the last days of the Jewish monarchy, and ever and anon raised his voice to declare that his fellow countrymen suffered, not as martyrs, but as criminals. He was like the herald who accompanies a condemned man on the way to execution, and proclaims his crime to the spectators.
What were these crimes? How was Jerusalem a sink of iniquity, an Augean stable, only to be cleansed by turning through it the floods of Divine chastisement? The annalists of Egypt and Chaldea show no interest in the morality of Judah; but there is no reason to believe that they regarded Jerusalem as more depraved than Tyre, or Babylon, or Memphis. If a citizen of one of these capitals of the East visited the city of David he might miss something of accustomed culture, and might have occasion to complain of the inferiority of local police arrangements, but he would be as little conscious of any extraordinary wickedness in the city as a Parisian would in London. Indeed, if an English Christian familiar with the East of the nineteenth century could be transported to Jerusalem under King Zedekiah, in all probability its moral condition would not affect him very differently from that of Cabul or Ispahan.
When we seek to learn from Jeremiah wherein the guilt of Judah lay, his answer is neither clear nor full: he does not gather up her sins into any complete and detailed indictment; we are obliged to avail ourselves of casual references scattered through his prophecies. For the most part Jeremiah speaks in general terms; a precise. and exhaustive catalogue of current vices would have seemed too familiar and commonplace for the written record.
The corruption of Judah is summed up by Jeremiah in the phrase "the evil of your doings," and her punishment is described in a corresponding phrase as "the fruit of your doings," or as coming upon her "because of the evil of your doings." The original of "doings" is a peculiar word occurring most frequently in Jeremiah, and the phrases are very common in Jeremiah, and hardly occur at all elsewhere. The constant reiteration of this melancholy refrain is an eloquent symbol of Jehovahs sweeping condemnation. In the total depravity of Judah, no special sin, no one group of sins, stood out from the rest. Their "doings" were evil altogether.
The picture suggested by the scattered hints as to the character of these evil doings is such as might be drawn of almost any Eastern state in its darker days. The arbitrary hand of the. government is illustrated by Jeremiahs own experience of the bastinado {Jer_20:2; Jer_37:15} and the dungeon, (chapters 37, 38) and by the execution of Uriah ben Shemaiah. {Jer_26:20-24} The rights of less important personages were not likely to be more scrupulously respected. The reproach of shedding innocent blood is more than once made against the people and their rulers; {Jer_2:34; Jer_19:4; Jer_22:17} and the more general charge of oppression occurs still more frequently. {Jer_5:25; Jer_6:6; Jer_7:5}
The motive for both these crimes was naturally covetousness; {Jer_6:13} as usual, they were specially directed against the helpless, "the poor," {Jer_2:34} "the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow"; and the machinery of oppression was ready to hand in venal judges and rulers. Upon occasion, however, recourse was had to open violence-men could "steal and murder," as well as "swear falsely"; {Jer_7:5-9} they lived in an atmosphere of falsehood, they "walked in a lie." {Jer_23:14} Indeed the word "lie" is one of the keynotes of these prophecies. The last days of the monarchy offered special temptations to such vices. Social wreckers reaped an unhallowed harvest in these stormy times. Revolutions were frequent, and each in its turn meant fresh plunder for unscrupulous partisans. Flattery and treachery could always find a market in the court of the suzerain or the camp of the invader. Naturally, amidst this general demoralization, the life of the family did not remain untouched: "the land was full of adulterers." {Jer_23:10; Jer_23:14} Zedekiah and Ahab, the false prophets at Babylon are accused of having committed adultery with their neighbours wives. {Jer_29:23} In these passages "adultery" can scarcely be a figure for idolatry; and even if it is, idolatry always involved immoral ritual.
In accordance with the general teaching of the Old Testament, Jeremiah traces the roots of the peoples depravity to a certain moral stupidity; they are "a foolish people, without understanding," who, like the idols in Psa_115:5-6, "have eyes and see not" and "have ears and hear not." In keeping with their stupidity was an unconsciousness of guilt which even rose into proud self-righteousness. They could still come with pious fervour to worship in the temple of Jehovah and to claim the protection of its inviolable sanctity. They could still assail Jeremiah with righteous indignation because he announced the coming destruction of the place where Jehovah had chosen to set His name. (chapters 7, 26) They said that they had no sin, and met the prophets rebukes with protests of conscious innocence: "Wherefore hath Jehovah pronounced all this great evil against us? or what is our iniquity? or what is our sin that we have committed against Jehovah our God?" {Jer_16:10}
When the public conscience condoned alike the abuse of the forms of law and its direct violation, actual legal rights would be strained to the utmost against debtors, hired labourers, and slaves. In their extremity, the princes and people of Judah sought to propitiate the anger of Jehovah by emancipating their Hebrew slaves; when the immediate danger had passed away for a time, they revoked the emancipation. (Chapter 34) The form of their submission to Jehovah reveals their consciousness that their deepest sin lay in their behaviour to their helpless dependents. This prompt repudiation of a most solemn covenant illustrated afresh their callous indifference to the well-being of their inferiors. The depravity of Judah was not only total, it was also universal. In the older histories we read how Achans single act of covetousness involved the whole people in misfortune, and how the treachery of the bloody house of Saul brought three years famine upon the land; but now the sins of individuals and classes were merged in the general corruption. Jeremiah dwells with characteristic reiteration of idea and phrase upon this melancholy truth. Again and again he enumerates the different classes of the community: "kings, princes, priests, prophets, men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem." They had all done evil and provoked Jehovah to anger; they were all to share the same punishment. {Jer_32:26-35} cf. "Characteristic Expressions." (chapter 3) They were all arch rebels, given to slander; nothing but base metal; corrupters, every one of them. {Jer_6:28} "The universal extent of total depravity is most forcibly expressed when Zedekiah with his court and people are summarily described as a basket of "very bad figs, too bad to be eaten." The dark picture of Israels corruption is not yet complete-Israels corruption, for now the prophet is no longer exclusively concerned with Judah. The sin of these last days is no new thing; it is as old as the Israelite occupation of Jerusalem. "This city hath been to Me a provocation of My anger and of My fury from the day that they built it even unto this day"; from the earliest days of Israels national existence, from the time of Moses and the Exodus, the people have been given over to iniquity. "The children of Israel and the children of Judah have done nothing but evil before Me from their youth. {Jer_32:26-35} Thus we see at last that Jeremiahs teaching concerning the sin of Judah can be summed up in one brief and comprehensive proposition. Throughout their whole history all classes of the community have been wholly given over to every kind of wickedness.
This gloomy estimate of Gods Chosen People is substantially confirmed by the prophets of the later monarchy, from Amos and Hosea onwards. Hosea speaks of Israel in terms as sweeping as those of Jeremiah. "Hear the word of Jehovah, ye children of Israel; for Jehovah hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. Swearing and lying and killing and stealing and committing adultery, they cast off all restraint, and blood toucheth blood." As a prophet of the Northern Kingdom, Hosea is mainly concerned with his own country, but his casual references to Judah include her in the same condemnation. Amos again condemns both Israel and Judah: Judah, "because they have despised the law of Jehovah, and have not kept His commandments, and their lies caused them to err, after the which their fathers walked"; Israel, "because they sold the righteous for silver and the poor for a pair of shoes, and pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor and turn aside the way of the meek." {Amo_2:4-8} The first chapter of Isaiah is in a similar strain: Israel is "a sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil-doers"; "the whole head is sick, the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores." According to Micah, "Zion is built up with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity. The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money." {Mic_3:10-11}
Jeremiahs older and younger contemporaries, Zephaniah and Ezekiel, alike confirm his testimony. In the spirit and even the style afterwards used by Jeremiah, Zephaniah enumerates the sins of the nobles and teachers of Jerusalem. "Her princes within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolvesHer prophets are light and treacherous persons: her priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law." {Zep_3:3-4} Ezekiel 20 traces the defections of Israel from the sojourn in Egypt to the Captivity. Elsewhere Ezekiel says that "the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence"; (Eze_7:23 :; Eze_7:9; Eze_22:1-12) Jer_22:23-31 he catalogues the sins of priests, princes, prophets, and people, and proclaims that Jehovah "sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before Me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none."
We have now fairly before us the teaching of Jeremiah and the other prophets as to the condition of Judah: the passages quoted or referred to represent its general tone and attitude; it remains to estimate its significance. We should naturally suppose that such sweeping statements as to the total depravity of the whole people throughout all their history were not intended to be interpreted as exact mathematical formulae. And the prophets themselves state or imply qualifications. Isaiah insists upon the existence of a righteous remnant. When Jeremiah speaks of Zedekiah and his subjects as a basket of very bad figs, he also speaks of the Jews who had already gone into captivity as a basket of very good figs. The mere fact of going into captivity can hardly have accomplished an immediate and wholesale conversion. The "good figs" among the captives were presumably good before they went into exile. Jeremiahs general statements that "they were all arch rebels" do not therefore preclude the existence of righteous men in the community, Similarly, when he tells us that the city and people have always been given over to iniquity, Jeremiah is not ignorant of Moses and Joshua, David and Solomon, and the kings "who did right in the eyes of Jehovah"; nor does he intend to contradict the familiar accounts of ancient history. On the other hand, the universality which the prophets ascribe to the corruption of their people is no mere figure of rhetoric, and yet it is by no means incompatible with the view that Jerusalem, in its worst days, was not more conspicuously wicked than Babylon or Tyre; or even, allowing for the altered circumstances of the times, than London or Paris. It would never have occurred to Jeremiah to apply the average morality of Gentile cities as a standard by which to judge Jerusalem; and Christian readers of the Old Testament have caught something of the old prophetic spirit. The very introduction into the present context of any comparison between Jerusalem and Babylon may seem to have a certain flavour of irreverence. We perceive with the prophets that the City of Jehovah and the cities of the Gentiles must be placed in different categories. The popular modern explanation is that heathenism was so utterly abominable that Jerusalem at its worst was still vastly superior to Nineveh or Tyre. However exaggerated such views may be, they still contain an element of truth; but Jeremiahs estimate of the moral condition of Judah was based on entirely different ideas. His standards were not relative, but absolute; not practical, but ideal. His principles were the very antithesis of the tacit ignoring of difficult and unusual duties, the convenient and somewhat shabby compromise represented by the modern word "respectable." Israel was to be judged by its relation to Jehovahs purpose for His people. Jehovah had called them out of Egypt, and delivered them from a thousand dangers. He had raised up for them judges and kings, Moses, David, and Isaiah. He had spoken to them by Torah and by prophecy. This peculiar munificence of Providence and Revelation was not meant to produce a people only better by some small percentage than their heathen neighbours.
The comparison between Israel and its neighbours would no doubt be much more favourable under David than under Zedekiah, but even then the outcome of Mosaic religion as practically embodied in the national life was utterly unworthy of the Divine ideal; to have described the Israel of David or the Judah of Hezekiah as Jehovahs specially cherished possession, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, {Exo_19:6} would have seemed a ghastly irony even to the sons of Zeruiah, far more to Nathan, Gad, or Isaiah. Nor had any class, as a class, been wholly true to Jehovah at any period of the history. If for any considerable time the numerous order of professional prophets had had a single eye to the glory of Jehovah, the fortunes of Israel would have been altogether different, and where prophets failed, priests and princes and common people were not likely to succeed.
Hence, judged as citizens of Gods Kingdom on earth, the Israelites were corrupt in every faculty of their nature: as masters and servants, as rulers and subjects, as priests, prophets, and worshippers of Jehovah, they succumbed to selfishness and cowardice, and perpetrated the ordinary crimes and vices of ancient Eastern life.
The reader is perhaps tempted to ask: Is this all that is meant by the fierce and impassioned denunciations of Jeremiah? Not quite all. Jeremiah had had the mortification of seeing the great religious revival under Josiah spend itself, apparently in vain, against the ingrained corruption of the people. The reaction, as under Manasseh, had accentuated the worst features of the national life. At the same time the constant distress and dismay caused by disastrous invasionstended to general license and anarchy. A long period of decadence reached its nadir.
But these are mere matters of degree and detail; the main thing for Jeremiah was not that Judah had become worse, but that it had failed to become better. One great period of Israels probation was finally closed. The kingdom had served its purpose in the Divine Providence; but it was impossible to hope any longer that the Jewish monarchy was to prove the earthly embodiment of the Kingdom of God. There was no prospect of Judah attaining a social order appreciably better than that of the surrounding nations. Jehovah and His Revelation would be disgraced by any further association with the Jewish state.
Certain schools of socialists bring a similar charge against the modern social order; that it is not a Kingdom of God upon earth is sufficiently obvious; and they assert that our social system has become stereotyped on lines that exclude and resist progress towards any higher ideal. Now it is certainly true that every great civilisation hitherto has grown old and obsolete; if Christian society is to establish its right to abide permanently, it must show itself something more than an improved edition of the Athens of Pericles or the Empire of the Antonines.
All will agree that Christendom falls sadly short of its ideal, and therefore we may seek to gather instruction from Jeremiahs judgment on the shortcomings of Judah. Jeremiah specially emphasises the universality of corruption in individual character, in all classes of society and throughout the whole duration of history. Similarly we have to recognise that prevalent social and moral evils lower the general tone of individual character. Moral faculties are not set apart in watertight compartments. "Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, is guilty of all," is no mere forensic principle. The one offence impairs the earnestness and sincerity with which a man keeps the rest of the law, even though there may be no obvious lapse. There are moral surrenders made to the practical exigencies of commercial, social, political, and ecclesiastical life. Probably we should be startled and dismayed if we understood the consequent sacrifice of individual character.
We might also learn from the prophet that the responsibility for our social evils rests with all classes. Time was when the lower classes were plentifully lectured as the chief authors of public troubles; now it is the turn of the capitalist, the parson, and the landlord. The former policy had no very marked success, possibly the new method may not fare better.
Wealth and influence imply opportunity and responsibility which do not belong to the poor and feeble; but power is by no means confined to the privileged classes; and the energy, ability, and self-denial embodied in the great Trades Unions have sometimes shown themselves as cruel and selfish towards the weak and destitute as any association of capitalists. A necessary preliminary to social amendment is a General confession by each class of its own sins. Finally, the Divine Spirit had taught Jeremiah that Israel had always been sadly imperfect. He did not deny Divine Providence and human hope by teaching that the Golden Age lay in the past, that the Kingdom of God had been realised and allowed to perish. He was under no foolish delusion as to "the good old times"; in his most despondent moods he was not given over to wistful reminiscence. His example may help us not to become discouraged through exaggerated ideas about the attainments of past generations.
In considering modern life it may seem that we pass to an altogether different quality of evil to that denounced by Jeremiah, that we have lost sight of anything that could justify his fierce indignation, and thus that we fail in appreciating his character and message. Any such illusion may be corrected by a glance at the statistics of congested town districts, sweated industries, and prostitution. A social reformer, living in contact with these evils, may be apt to think Jeremiahs denunciations specially adapted to the society which tolerates them with almost unruffled complacency.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES. Vide previous chapter. Cf. 2Ki_24:10-12.
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES. Vide previous chapter. Cf. 2Ki_24:10-12.
Natural History. “Baskets of Figs:” Vide Natural History notes on chaps. Jer_5:17, Jer_8:13. The “first ripe” figs (Jer_24:2), called here bikkurah (cf. Isa_28:4; Mic_7:1; Hos_9:10), denotes the early or spring fig; and is still called boccore in Mauritania, and in Spanish albacora. The usual time for gathering figs is August; the early fig gathered in June is a rarity and delicacy. It is easily shaken off the tree (Nah_3:12). The “very bad figs” (Jer_24:2) were probably sycamore figs; which, unless punctured as they ripen, turn acrid, and “cannot be eaten” (Jer_24:3); or, they may have been decayed figs. “Baskets of figs” used to be offered as firstfruits in the Temple.
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HOMILETIC SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 24
THE BASKETS OF FIGS: A PARABLE AND A PROPHECY
Notes:—i. Those who are amid calamity do not necessarily deserve worse than those who temporarily escape.
ii. Those who temporarily escape calamity may be destined to far heavier chastisements.
iii. Among those whom disaster overtakes there may be eminently good men. Daniel and Ezekiel were among the first captives!
iv. Self-elation over immunity from adversity will only invoke more humbling providences. Probably those who remained behind thought themselves better than those who had gone into captivity; but heavier judgments came in due time upon these boasters.
v. Adversities may have a beneficent design and beneficent influence (Jer_24:5-8).
I. A nation rent asunder—yet arrayed beneath God’s eye.
1. Separated by ordinance of God’s providence. God had permitted the captivity; and He had reserved the part which remained behind.
(a.) In respect of location they were widely separated. Babylon lay far off from Jerusalem.
(b.) In respect of outward advantages they were widely dissimilar. Exiles and residents. Yet both were equally
2. Present under the eye of God’s omniscience. One part was captive in Babylon (Jer_24:1); the other part remained in Canaan (Jer_24:8); but both baskets of figs were “set before the Temple of the Lord.” [The word יָעַד implies that they were appointed to this place before God’s Temple.] Thus the exiles in Babylon were equally present to God’s eye as those at Jerusalem. Equally under His eye: those afar as those near; those amid adversity as those amid advantages.
(a.) Wherever we are we dwell under the Divine notice. We cannot go beyond His ken. None are forgotten by God. Those “afar off” were still “set before” Him.
(b.) Amid our adversities we do not lose the Divine Fatherhood. Even though “sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans” (Jer_24:4), yet God declares, “I will acknowledge them;” and “I will set Mine eyes upon them for good” (Jer_24:5).
II. A suggestive comparison—indicating vast moral dissimilarities. Two baskets of figs: in the one were “very good figs;” in the other “very naughty figs”—“the good figs, very good; and the evil, very evil.”
1. Their experiences seemed to reverse this estimate. It surprises us to find that those carried away captive were accounted “good,” while those escaping the miseries of exile are pronounced “very bad.” Here is teaching that we judge not character by circumstances; that we do not deem those who most suffer to be the greatest sinners. “Judge not according to the outward appearance;” “judge nothing before the time;” “I have seen the wicked in great power,” &c. The facts were that the exiles were the noblest and best of the nation; those left at home were the refuse.
2. Their separation was for a providential purpose. Those of the nation who were of any worth at all were called out and sent away into safe keeping, even though into exile. And there they were in good keeping. Although it seemed worse to be in captivity than to dwell at home, they were really better off in Chaldea. Their removal to Babylon saved them from the calamities which befel the rest of the nation. “Whom God loveth He chasteneth.”
3. Their distinctive qualities was emphatically marked. “Very good—very bad.” Doubtless those who remained at home flattered themselves with being better than those who were exiled, and more pleasing to God than those who suffered captivity. They showed themselves “very bad” by their pride of heart, by not profiting from the salutary warning of the calamity which had come upon their fellow-countrymen, by not repenting of their own evils and amending their ungodly lives. The exiles showed themselves “good” by signs of regeneration under the discipline of captivity. God Himself esteemed them more favourably (Jer_24:5), and saw in them higher excellences and more hopeful qualities than the rest possessed. “God looketh not on the outward appearance, but at the heart.”
III. A contrasted destiny—according with their merit and conduct. The good figs were a delicacy (see Natural History note supra); the bad were obnoxious—“could not be eaten.” There was a reverse destiny for them. God gave this vision and prophecy to Jeremiah: (a) To cheer the disconsolate captives with a hope of future good; (b) To check the vaunting of the heartless residents by menaces of their impending doom.
1. The gracious destiny of the exiles. (1.) They should be carefully preserved (Jer_24:5). (2.) They were favourably regarded, and would be “acknowledged” by God (Jer_24:4). (3.) Their banishment was for their good (Jer_24:5). (4.) Their miraculous rescue was pledged them (Jer_24:6). (5.) Spiritual regeneration should crown all other and temporal benefits (Jer_24:7). Thus “God will devise means whereby His banished ones shall return unto Him.”
2. The hopeless desolation of the disobedient. They had refused to act on God’s counsel (chap. Jer_16:8-9); and now boasted of their prudence in remaining in the city; probably, too, they talked scornfully of the captives. But these people should (1.) Be driven asunder over the earth (Jer_24:9); whereas the Babylonish captives were altogether in one scene; companions and confederated. (2.) Their calamities would work ill to them—not regenerating them, as the others, but hardening and alienating them the more (Jer_24:9). (3.) They would be subjected to contempt and ridicule (Jer_24:9). (4.) No hope or possibility of restoration would be granted them (Jer_24:10). Whereas their exiled fellow-countrymen were being preserved for better times, they were but reserved for greater woes. Neither those who were carried into Egypt with Jehoahaz (Jer_24:8), nor those who should flee thither, would share in the blessings promised to the Chaldean exiles. “According to their deeds, accordingly He will repay” (Isa_59:19). God’s administrations of chastisement or punishment are regulated by what He discerns are our dispositions and possibilities.
See Addenda: CHASTENED, YET NOT ABANDONED.
Lange supplies the following homiletic summary of the chapter:—
GOOD AND BAD FIGS—EMBLEMS OF HUMANITY
Humanity in its twofold aspect: well-pleasing or displeasing to God.
I. The prisoners and broken-hearted are, like the good figs, well-pleasing to God. For (1) They know the Lord, and turn to Him; (2) He is their God, and they are His people.
II. Those who dwell proudly and securely are, like the bad figs, displeasing to God. For (1) They live on in foolish blindness; (2) They challenge the judgment of God.
HOMILIES AND COMMENTS ON VERSBS OF CHAPTER 24
Jer_24:2. Theme: DELICIOUS AND REPUISIVE FRUIT. “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.”
See Natural History note above, on the varieties of figs and their ripening periods.
Analogy: Men show varieties in temperament and character, more remarkable than the varieties among figs, and more numerous. And among men the ripening matures at different periods: some being early ripe—children and youth; others reaching maturity only in the autumn years of life; others only in the winter of age. But the differences among men may be summed up thus: good and bad. Two classes only. Gradations there are in each class, but the absolute qualities are only two.
I. Growth under common conditions. These figs were all Palestine figs.
1. Their original stock was the same. All were “figs;” and grew on trees which were identical in genus. So all men, whatever their nationality or individuality or parentage, spring from the one stock—humanity; and humanity invested with its qualities and possibilities by God.
2. Their advantages were the same. The same soil—Canaan; under same fructifying influences—religious influences, Divine teachings, prophetic counsels and warnings, &c.; guarded by the same care—God watched over both: He the Gardener.
II. Maturing under gracious influences. Both the “good” and “bad” reached maturity and ripeness. They could not resist these influences working that result.
1. Maturing influences which compelled development. Probably people dislike their true character being forced to decision and fruition; they would rather remain neutral. But the “figs” could not escape nor resist the action of earth, air, and sun. This Jewish nation could not escape nor resist the influences of prophetic teaching and providential discipline. On the two sections of the people there had acted developing influences: exile had benefited the captives; whereas exemption from captivity had hardened those who remained in Judah. So on all men providence, religion, grace, and God’s Spirit are acting; compelling the development and manifestation of their temper and character.
2. Maturing influences which tested their true nature. The figs ripened into “good figs” and “naughty figs.” The maturing processes do not change the nature of the thing fructified, but only bring it to complete development. So Jeremiah’s prophecies and God’s providential dealings did not make them “good” or “naughty,” but tested their tendency. Thus life’s incidents and Gospel preaching test us: prove our spirit; try the state and inclinations of our hearts.
III. Resulting in the completest contrast. “Very good figs, even the figs first ripe”—a delicious fruit; “very naughty figs, which could not be eaten, so bad”—rotten or repulsive fruit.
1. Wholly dissimilar in quality and character. The exiles became humble, repentant, reformed. The resident Jews became insolent, self-secure, defiant. The former became a delicacy “as the first ripe figs;” the latter obnoxious, “could not be eaten.” “Good” and “bad.” What is our moral quality or spiritual character? Godly or ungodly; sacred or sinful; with Christ or against Him; redeemed or reprobate?
2. God dealt with them according to their state. Not according to their name; both fruits were “figs;” and both sections of the nation were “Jews.” But according to their nature and quality: “good” or “naughty.” The “good”—God “will acknowledge” (Jer_24:5), and make better (Jer_24:7). The “bad”—He would reject (Jer_24:9) and destroy (Jer_24:10). The exiles became ripe for God’s mercy; the residents became rotten and repulsive—fit for nothing but rejection.
Jer_24:7. Theme: KNOWING GOD WITH THE HEART. “And I will give them an heart to know Me.”
God has often kind and gracious purposes towards men when they least imagine it. “Truly God is good to Israel.” We are very imperfect judges of the character and design of Divine dispensations. “No man knoweth good or evil from all that is before him.” The good figs, meaning the best and most spiritual part of the nation, were sent to Babylon for their good; and the bad figs, the most corrupt among the Jews, were kept in Jerusalem that they might ripen to ruin. Those who remained in Jerusalem no doubt thought that they were special objects of Divine favour, and that they who were sent first to Babylon were the objects of God’s displeasure: but the reverse was the fact. This may teach us not to be rash and hasty in our conclusions; not to judge before the time; and not to convert calamities into judgments (Luk_13:1-5).
I. The eminent blessing promised—a heart to know and love God.
i. It is inestimably precious—“to know Him”—know Him as their God. All knowledge is valuable; but Divine knowledge supremely so. By this is meant not a speculative knowledge, which the devils have in greater perfection than ourselves, and remain devils still; but a spiritual, experimental, and soul-satisfying knowledge of God. It includes a knowledge of Him in His revealed character, in His condescending grace, in His covenant relations, in His providential government, and in the special communion with the souls of His redeemed children. “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious”—gracious in making His promises; faithful in fulfilling them. God known in the heart is, in effect, to have the Bible opened, the Law opened, the Gospel opened, Christ opened, heaven opened, the covenant of grace opened, and the blessings and immunities of the spiritual life laid opened and revealed. But without this—without Christ and the knowledge and love of God shed abroad in the heart, our religion is a mere name—like a husk without the kernel, like a casket without the jewel, like a body without the informing spirit.
ii. It is God’s special gift. “I will give.” He claims it; He only is competent; He delights to give it. This is not a natural attainment, but a Divine communication and bestowment. All knowledge is essentially from God, for He teacheth the husbandman discretion, and taught Aholiab and Bezaleel how to accomplish the carved work for the tabernacle—but this spiritual knowledge is pre-eminently from Him.
iii. This is often a gradual attainment: begun in conversion, carried on in the successive developments of the Christian life. He who impresses Divine truths upon the mind, at first, in conversion, opens them more fully afterwards—shows their importance, harmony, consistency, and power; removes doubts and jealousies and suspicions concerning them, and renders them vitally influential upon the soul. “Then shall we know, if we follow on to know, His going forth is prepared as the morning.”
One beam of light breaking in from the Spirit of God does more towards confirming and establishing the mind in the truths of religion, than a thousand arguments of the most subtle disputers, or a thousand sermons of the most eloquent preachers. Hence we read of “the demonstration of the Spirit.”
iv. It is greatly facilitated by sanctified afflictions. The good figs must be removed to Babylon, to attain a higher knowledge of God, and a greater ripeness of grace. The school of the Cross is the school of light. In captivity it is given them. Afflictions were the means of it.
II. The means of its attainment.
i. Plead the promise in prayer. Oh, how much need have we to wait and pray for its accomplishment in our own experience! Some are weak in knowledge; slow in capacity, like the disciples, who, though they had so good a Master, were but dull scholars. “Some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame.” Like the Hebrews, chap. Jer_5:12. We must open our mouth to God in prayer, that He may open our eyes. “Open Thou mine eyes.” “Lord, that I may receive my sight.” “Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.”
ii. Honour the methods of Divine instruction: ordinances, providences.
iii. Walk by the light of the truth you know. If you have any saving and spiritual knowledge, be thankful, be humble. Do not abuse the light, but improve it. Live under the power of the truth as it is in Jesus. Resign yourself to its transforming power. Give this knowledge room to work, that it may have free course and be glorified in you.
iv. Guard against all the obstructions to this knowledge: against sloth, against worldliness, against easily-besetting sins. “Ye did run well, who hath hindered you?” Some men know much, but to little purpose. Their hearts are too strong for their light. This makes them more skilful hypocrites. These make rents and divisions in the Church. They employ the light they have to do the devil’s work.
III. The uses to which this knowledge is subservient.
i. To our happiness: free from doubt.
ii. To our holiness: alienate us from the world and evil.
iii. To our usefulness: makes us bold for God, a centre of light; emboldens us to act and suffer.—Samuel Thodey, A.D. 1856.
See Addenda: CHASTENED, YET NOT ABANDONED.
Theme: AN ENLIGHTENED HEART IS GOD’S GIFT.
“Since He affirms that He would give them a heart to understand, we hence learn—
i. That men are by nature blind; and also that, when they are blinded by the devil, they cannot return to the right way.
ii. That men cannot be otherwise capable of light than by having God to illuminate them by His Spirit.
This passage also shows—
iii. That until the sinner bows before God’s tribunal and owns Him to be the Judge, he will never be touched with the feeling of true repentance.”—Calvin.
Comments—
“He who willingly and readily resigns himself to the will of God [as the exiles did] even to the cross, may escape misfortunes. But he who opposes himself to the hand of God [as the residents in Jerusalem], cannot escape.”—Cramer.
“The captives are dearest to God. By the first greater affliction He prepares their souls for repentance and radical conversion, so that He has in them again His people and inheritance. Oh the gracious God, that He allows those who on account of sin must be so deeply degraded and rendered slaves, even in such humiliation, to be His people! The captives are forgiven their opposition to God.… God will show them what His love can do; they shall return, and in true nearness to God be His true Israel.”—Diedrich.
NOTICEABLE TOPICS IN CHAPTER 24
Topic: JEREMIAH’S VISION OF FIGS. Reflections on some of the characteristics of the age we live in. (Jer_24:1-3.)
It is not difficult to see the force and application of this homely but sententious little allegory. Jeremiah lived in those days of declension and disaster in which the threatened invasion of Judea by the king of Babylon actually took place. Those who were “carried away” comprised the best of the population with regard to intelligence, religious feeling, and patriotism. Their sorrows and afflictions humbled them, so that they repented of their idolatries and obtained mercy of the Lord. They also found favour with their conquerors, and not a few of them rose to high and influential positions in the court and kingdom of Babylon. The Jews who remained at home with Zedekiah “and his princes” revolted against God more and more. Their heart was proud and unhumbled. Year after year they sunk deeper into misery, profanity, and vice. They not only provoked the Divine anger increasingly, but awakened the fierce disdain and hatred of their Chaldean masters, so that at length they were so wasted and ravaged by pestilence, battle, poverty, and exile as to be utterly consumed from off the land which God had given to them and to their fathers (see Jer_24:8-10). These were the evil figs, so evil that they could not be eaten. The figs ought to have been good, but were not. All the figs were figs of the same season—say an unusually hot and dry one—suiting the trees in certain localities pre-eminently well, whereas in other localities the trees were blighted and withered, and the figs which grew upon them, dry, dusty, tasteless, and worm-eaten.
We are thus led to think of A SEASON FOR FRUIT, PECULIARLY INTENSE AND ARDENT, causing it to come to pass that good fruit turns out remarkably good, and bad fruit remarkably bad. The point suggested by Jeremiah’s vision is, That there occur periods or special circumstances in the religious life of nations, which tend to develop and force the maturation of character with unusual energy and astonishing rapidity. In such times you do not find people merely good or bad; but the good are very good, and the evil very evil. Such a crisis it was with the Jews at the time when Jeremiah prophesied.
We live, at present, in a kind of hothouse atmosphere, which has the effect of rapidly developing, as well as mightily intensifying, all the moral and religious elements which go to constitute personal character. Must not the good be very good, and the evil very evil?
Suggest some of the circumstances and influences which invest the times we live in with this interesting peculiarity, and point out a few of the instances and illustrations of the effect thereby produced.
I. Certain peculiarities of our times and position may be noted.
1. This is an age of extraordinary intellectual and social activity. It is an age of many books and much reading; of fearless inquiry and frequent discovery, &c. It requires a great effort to keep the mind calm, to allay the frenzy of excited feeling, to check the extravagances of new-found liberty, and hold fast to the sober requirements of sound principle and acknowledged truth.
2. Another thing to be noticed is the very full and clear religious light which we enjoy. Compare it with any period since the Apostolic age; the Bible was never more closely and deeply studied than now; never were its great cardinal doctrines so fully established or so generally acknowledged among all sections of the Church; the Gospel was never preached to so many nations as now, and at no period were there in Great Britain so many preachers of evangelical truth as now. It would seem well-nigh impossible for any man to remain in ignorance of the things of God, the claims of Jesus, and the way of salvation.
3. There is also a corresponding increase of activity in the Church. Certainly no age has ever surpassed our own in visible earnestness, in pecuniary liberality, or in the excitement and emulation of real Christian work.
What do all these things necessitate on our part individually? Truly potent and stimulating agencies are in operation, calculated to arouse us to repentance and godly solicitude, and then to prompt and goad us on to vigorous Christian life and action. What bold, what firm, what fruitful Christians we must become if we enter fully into “the spirit of the times,” considered as engaged on the side of Christ and His Gospel! But if we refuse to do so, if we set ourselves to resist these powerful influences, how strenuous must that resistance be! how determined and resolute and how self-conscious that action of the will which still fights against God and clings to worldliness and sin! It seems impossible for us to be half-hearted, undecided, only negatively good or bad. Truly we must take sides openly, one way or the other. We cannot stand neutral: we must declare ourselves boldly and actively either for Christ or against Him. Behold the two baskets of figs; the good figs must be very good, and the evil figs very evil.
II. Facts are in harmony with these reasonings. Illustrations abound on every side. In this earnest age you find earnest men both for good and evil.
l. Was ever war conducted on so fearful a scale as we have lately witnessed it?
2. In our day, we have also seen such specimens of commercial roguery and robbery, conceived on so magnificent a scale, and executed under so clever and admirable a cloak of hypocrisy, as no previous age has ever presented to the world. Never, assuredly, in any land—Sodom and Gomorrah unexcepted—have baser things been done than have been discovered in our land, and in our own time.
3. On the other hand, look at the men who stand foremost in the van of religion and philanthropy. These are God’s heroes; worthy of comparison with the spiritual heroes of ancient times, in regard to all that is noble in faith, self-denying in zeal, munificent in giving, or abundant in labours. These are among the good figs, which by God’s grace are very good: and to the production of such instances of exalted and matured piety the present times are not in the least unfavourable.
4. One might speak of books as well as men. We defy any age to show such noble and masterly treatises as are now written by men of sanctified, learning and genius, either in exposition of the Scriptures, or in vindication of their contents. Here again the good figs are very good, even as the evil figs are very evil.
5. Then there are public institutions and societies to be looked at. There are all manner of good institutions set on foot, it is true, but so are there, also, all manner of evil institutions established and seen to be flourishing. The kingdom of Satan is as active and roused up to new exertions as is the kingdom of Christ. Enormous sums of money are spent in the cause of religion; but far, far greater sums are forthcoming to support folly and wickedness, to build temples of mammon-worship and of pleasure, and to uphold the reign of sensuality and impiety.
III. One or two practical lessons ask our attention. We live in stirring times, in which the forces, both of good and evil, like the arts of material warfare, are developing unprecedented resources, and putting forth unheard-of and most gigantic energies; times in which prodigies abound, both of wickedness and of goodness; times in which the “good” figs are very good, and the “naughty” figs very bad. It is no small matter to live in England in this nineteenth century. A hotter, more crowded, or more excited moral battle-field was never known in the history of the world. Therefore—
1. Let no man’s trumpet give an uncertain sound; nor let any one think that he can remain a neutral or uninterested spectator of the conflict. What a heavy responsibility rests upon those who live in such a century as this! The religious and moral influences which bear upon us are mighty beyond all that has gone before us.
2. This is no time for trifling. Let us seek to be good, and do good: and then, behold what glorious possibilities belong to us of being pre-eminently holy, blest, and useful! Ought we not to seek this higher growth in grace? Should we not desire to be, among the lowly, the most humble; among the spotless, the most pure; among the active, the most toilsome; among the meek, the most patient; and among the kind, the most charitable? Let us be “instant” in prayer; and, like Abraham, “strong in faith, giving glory to God.” Surely this is a worthy and noble ambition; not merely to be a Christian, but a Christian of the highest order.
3. Each may do great things for God. His talent may be small; but how much may he make of it! What means of knowledge, what incentives to zeal, what facilities for usefulness are within every one’s reach! None need be idle or half employed. Now, if ever, may the “good figs” be “very good,” even as the “naughty figs” are very “bad.” Now, if ever, does the saying of Zechariah apply to God’s Church: “And he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the Lord before them.” Let us never forget that he who would have God on his side, must take care himself to be always on the side of God.—Rev. T. G. Horton (Wolverhampton), in “Christian World Pulpit” (summarised).
ADDENDA TO CHAPTER 24: ILLUSTRATIONS AND SUGGESTIVE EXTRACTS
Jer_24:1. CHASTENED, BUT NOT ABANDONED.
Three facts should be here noted:—
The exiles were remembered by God, as this vision shows. Also, they were graciously esteemed by Him—better figs than those who remained at home. Further, God intended good to them. So that when we seem outcast from happiness and hope, God may be only chastening us for our profit, or keeping us away from besotting “prosperity” (chap. Jer_22:21), in order that we may be prepared for spiritual elevation (chap. Jer_24:7).
“After the storm, a calm;
After the bruise, a balm;
For the ill brings good in the Lord’s own time,
And the sigh becomes a psalm.
“After the drought, the dew;
After the cloud, the blue;
For the sky will smile in the sun’s good time,
And the earth grow glad and new.”
—Mrs. Crawford.
Trapp remarks that “Jeconiah was a wicked prince, and therefore written childless. Howbeit, because by the advice of the prophet Jeremiah he submitted to Nebuchadnezzar, he and his company are here comforted, and pronounced more happy, however it might seem otherwise, than those that continued still in the land; and this, say the Hebrews (Rabar, Hugo, Lyra), was not obscurely set forth also by those two baskets of figs, whereof that which was worst showed best, and the other showed worst till they came to be tasted.”
“Winter brings blessings, so the chill
Of dark adversity;—from its cold grasp
The soul revives reanimate,—more strong,
And better armed.”—F. A. Mackay.
Winter will kill vermin which the summer of success and comfort is apt to produce and nourish.
“Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant.”—Horace.
“All-pitying Heaven,
Severe in mercy, chastening in its love,
Oft-times in dark and awful visitation
Doth interpose, and leads the wanderer back
To the straight path, to be for ever after
A firm, undaunted, onward-bearing traveller,
Strong in humility, who swerves no more.”
—Joanna Baillie.
(Comp. Addenda to chap. 22, PROSPERITY.)
“I have read of a fountain that at noonday is cold, and at midnight it grows warm. So many a precious soul is cold Godward and Heavenward in prosperity, and grows warm in the midnight of adversity.”—Brooks.
Jer_24:7. “THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.”
“This falling out of lovers shall but be a renewing of love betwixt us. God must sometimes whip His people to duty, and gather them from evil, as well as entice them.”—Trapp.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Two Baskets of Figs
The Two Baskets of Figs
The evil figs were such of the people as had not been carried away with Jehoiachin to Babylon after the first siege of Jerusalem, 597 b.c., but had failed to draw any warning from the fate that had overtaken their brethren. Those who had been made captives, on the other hand, should yet be the subjects of God's love and grace. The ripening time for both baskets was over, but here the likeness between them ceased.
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1. Carpenters] RV 'craftsmen,' the most valuable captives.
2. First ripe] In the case of trees bearing twice in the year, the first crop, ripening in June, was considered a special delicacy. Naughty] RV 'bad.'
5. Acknowledge] RV 'regard.'
8. Egypt] cp. Jer_22:10, Jer_22:11.
9. To be removed into] RV 'to be tossed to and fro among.'
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 The Two Baskets of Figs
CHAPTER 24
The Two Baskets of Figs
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1. The vision of the two baskets of figs (Jer 24:1-3)
2. The vision interpreted (Jer 24:4-10)
Jer 24:1-3. Jeconiah, with the choicest of the nation, had been carried away into captivity. A large portion remained, and were not taken away, and these attributed their escape from exile to some goodness in them. At that time the prophet had a vision. He saw set before the temple two baskets of figs. The one basket was filled with good figs, the second basket with bad figs.
Jer 24:4-10. The good figs are symbolical of those who were carried away into captivity. They were sent away for their good. He promises them good things. They are going to return; He is going to build them; He will plant them. More than that, He will give them a heart to know that He is the Lord. “For they shall return unto Me with their whole heart.” They are never to be plucked up. This prophecy evidently goes beyond the return of the small remnant from Babylon, yet partially at least it was fulfilled. The bad figs are those who remained with Zedekiah in Jerusalem, but they also should be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth, “to be a reproach, a proverb, a taunt and a curse.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 A Type of Judah’s Future
A Type of Judah’s Future
v. 1. The Lord showed me, and, behold, as Jeremiah was vouchsafed this strange vision, two baskets of figs were set before the Temple of the Lord, in the place which was set apart for offerings of this kind, Cf Amo 7:1-4; Amo 7:7, after that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had carried away captive Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the princes of Judah, the rulers and nobles, the mighty of the land, with the carpenters and smiths, the craftsmen skilled in the making of weapons, from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon, an act which so weakened the power of the Jews as to make it practically impossible for them to prepare for war. Cf 2Ki 24:14-17. This incident evidently happened at the beginning of Zedekiah’s reign, when the country had been reduced to a condition of vassalage to the Chaldeans.
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v. 2. One basket had very good figs, being full of very fine specimens of this fruit, even like the figs that are first ripe, which were considered special delicacies; and the other basket had very naughty figs, bad, unwholesome, rotten fruit, which could not be eaten, they were so bad.
v. 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. The purpose of the question was to impress the lesson upon Jeremiah’s mind, to call attention to the objects which were to symbolize the Jews.
v. 4. Again the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
v. 5. Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, still the God of the covenant to all who are Israelites in truth, Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah, regarding them with favor, extending His pleasure to them, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good, to let them experience His blessings, to have them realize that His method of dealing with them was for their own benefit.
v. 6. For I will set Mine eyes upon them for good, being most attentive to their wants in this respect, and I will bring them again to this land; and I will build them and not pull them down, as a building condemned to be wrecked; and I will plant them and not pluck them up, like a poisonous plant or dangerous weed. The removal of these Jews to Babylon saved them from the calamities which befell the rest of the nation, and led them to repentance in the land of their captivity, the result being that their condition was bettered.
v. 7. And I will give them an heart to know Me, that I am the Lord, the punishment of the Babylonian captivity directing their minds to the one true God, who could thus carry out His threats, so that they likewise looked for mercy to Him alone; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, thus restoring the original relation, which had been so rudely disturbed and made impossible by their idolatry; for they shall return unto Me with their whole heart, or, "I will be their God when they return to Me with their whole heart. "
v. 8. And as the evil figs, which cannot be eaten they are so evil: surely thus salth the Lord, So will I give Zedekiah, the king of Judah, and his princes, all the rulers and nobles of the people, and the residue of Jerusalem that remain in this land, and them that dwell in the land of Egypt, the obstinate Jews, who refused to heed His warning and accept His advice to yield to the Chaldeans;
v. 9. and I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth for their hurt, literally, "I will give them for a shaking-up, for evil to all kingdoms of the earth," so that abuse and misfortune would strike them everywhere, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places whither I shall drive them, they would be the object of blasphemous derision on the part of all those with whom they would come into contact.
v. 10. And I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, the great scourges of all times, among them, till they be consumed from off the land, exterminated, extirpated from the Land of Promise, that I gave unto them and to their fathers. Thus the Lord predicts further invasions and repeated sackings of Jerusalem. Thus was His curse, as uttered in the Law, Deu 28:37, carried out upon all those who refused Him obedience according to His demand, as a warning to the men of all times.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4 All instances of this pronoun refer to Jeremiah.
me
All instances of this pronoun refer to Jeremiah.
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Behold
The word "Behold" here shows that Jeremiah saw something interesting.
This vision happened ... them to Babylon
This part of the story is used to provide historical information to show when the events of the happened. (See: Background Information)
craftsmen
people skilled at building things
metalworkers
people skilled at creating things out of metal
they could not be eaten ... they cannot be eaten
These can be stated in active form. AT: "no one could eat them .. no one can eat them" (See: Active or Passive)
translationWords
Yahweh
fig
temple
vision
Nebuchadnezzar
king
Babylon
exile
Jehoiachin
Jehoiakim
kingdom of Judah
Jerusalem
Jeremiah
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 7 24:1-10 This section is a discussion of the meaning…
24:1-10 This section is a discussion of the meaning of the exile of 597 BC. Some were saying that it had been God’s way of getting the rotten figs out of the barrel (Jerusalem) so that the good figs would survive. Jeremiah said that the exact opposite was the case. The good figs had been taken out of the barrel (into exile) so that the rotten figs would not destroy them.
24:1 Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar had taken Jehoiachin into captivity to Babylon in 597 BC. Jehoiachin’s surrender had spared Jerusalem, but its treasures and 10,000 of its elite citizens had gone into exile (2 Kgs 24:8-16). • Typically, baskets of figs would be displayed in a market rather than in the Temple area.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.