Jeremiah 24:10

He confirms the former verse, — that God would then with extreme rigor punish them, by allowing the city and the inhabitants who remained, to be given up to the will of their enemies. And Jeremiah still speaks as from the mouth of Moses, that his prophecy might be more weighty, and that he might frighten those men who were so refractory. There are here three kinds of punishments which we often meet with, under which are included all other punishments. But as God for the most part punishes the sins of men by pestilence, or by famine, or by war, he connects these three together when his purpose is to include all kinds of punishment. He adds, _Until they be consumed from the face of the land; _he says not “until they be consumed in the land,” but from the face of it, מעל _, mol, _from upon it: for the Jews were not consumed in their own country; but he consumed them by degrees elsewhere, so...

Verse Jeremiah 24:10. _I WILL SEND THE SWORD_] Many of them fell by sword and famine in the war with the Chaldeans, and many more by such means afterwards. The first received their captivity as a correction, and turned to God; the latter still hardened their hearts more and more, and probably very many of them never returned: perhaps they are now amalgamated with heathen nations. Lord, how long?...

The complete fulfillment of this prophecy belongs to the Christian Church. There is a close analogy between Jeremiah at the first destruction of Jerusalem and our Lord at the second. There the good figs were those converts picked out by the preaching of Christ and the Apostles; the bad figs were the mass of the people left for Titus and the Romans to destroy. Jeremiah 24:5 ACKNOWLEDGE ... FOR THEIR GOOD - Specially their spiritual good. Put a comma after Chaldaeans. Jeremiah 24:8 THAT DWELL IN THE LAND OF EGYPT - Neither those carried captive with Jehoahaz into Egypt, nor those who fled there, are to share in these blessings. The new life of the Jewish nation is to be the work only

EXPOSITION Again Jeremiah's ungrateful task is to take up an attitude of direct opposition to the king (comp. Jeremiah 22:13), 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. Amos 7:1, Amos 7:4, Amos 7:7; Amos 8:1

AND I WILL SEND THE SWORD, THE FAMINE, AND THE PESTILENCE, AMONG THEM,.... Meaning not in other lands, where they should be driven, but while in their own land, by which many should perish; and the rest that escaped these dreadful judgments should be carried captive. The Targum is, "I will send those that kill with the sword, c.'' TILL THEY BE CONSUMED FROM OFF THE LAND THAT I GAVE UNTO THEM AND TO THEIR FATHERS so that none of them should be left there to inhabit it, which is now their case; and it is an aggravation of their calamity and punishment, that they are no more the inhabitants of that good land, which was God's gift to them, and to their fathers before them....

CHAPTER 24 The Two Baskets of Figs _ 1. The vision of the two baskets of figs (Jeremiah 24:1) _ 2. The vision interpreted (Jeremiah 24:4) Jeremiah 24:1. 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. Jeremiah 24:4. The good figs are symbolical of those who were carried away

THE GOOD AND BAD FIGS. The prophet sees (either in vision or actuality; see on Jeremiah 1:11; Jeremiah 1:13; _cf._ Amos 7:1, etc.) baskets of good and bad figs respectively; Yahweh tells him that the former represent the first body of exiles under Jeconiah (Jehoiachin, 2 Kings 24:15 f.) who shall be restored, and the latter the people remaining under Zedekiah, together with those in Egypt. For Ezekiel's similar judgment of the Palestinian and Babylonian sections of Judah, see Ezekiel 17:11 ff;...

THE SWORD, THE FAMINE, AND THE PESTILENCE. Reference to Pentateuch (Leviticus 26:25; Leviticus 26:26; Deuteronomy 28:21). App-92. THE FAMINE. Some codices, with one early printed edition, Septuagint, Syriac, and Vulgate, read "and famine", thus completing the Figure of speech _Polysyndeton_. LAND. soil, or ground. Hebrew. _'adamah._...

See introd. summary to section....

3. _The meaning of the bad figs_ (Jeremiah 24:8-10) TRANSLATION (8) But as the bad figs which were so bad they could not be eaten, surely thus says the LORD: Thus will I make Zedekiah king of Judah and his princes and the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land and who dwell in the land of Egypt. (9) And I will give them over for trembling, for evil to all the kingdoms of the land; for reproach and for a proverb, for a by-word and for a curse in every place where I drive them. (10) And I will send against them the sword, the famine and the plague until they are utterly consumed from upon the ground which I gave to them and to their fathers. COMMENTS The basket of bad figs is symbolic of those who had not been taken into captivity in 597 B.C., those to whom Jeremiah was to proclaim the word of God for yet a decade. God would make Zedekiah the