This vision narrative occurs chronologically prior to Jeremiah 21, which was set during a period in which King Zedekiah had already been reigning in Jerusalem for some time as Babylon’s puppet king. In chapter 24, however, Jeconiah (also known as Coniah or Jehoiachin; cf. 22:24–30) has recently been deposed by Babylon (24:1). Zedekiah, Jeconiah’s uncle who replaces him as king, has just been appointed by Nebuchadnezzar. This occasion in 598 BC is also when Babylon takes a significant group of Judah’s nobles and artisans into exile. Once the population is split between Babylon and Judah after this deportation (as well as the earlier deportation of 605 BC), there arises an urgent theological question that receives special attention in Jeremiah 24; 29: Where are the true people of Yahweh located?

Chapter 24 provides the first answer to this question in the form of a vision, much like Jeremiah’s opening visions of an almond tree (1:11–12) and a boiling pot (1:13–16). Shortly after Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon partially deports Judah’s population, the prophet sees a vision of two baskets of figs (24:1), one with first-ripe figs and the other containing rotten ones (vv. 2–3). To the disbelief of Jeremiah and his audience, Yahweh declares that the good figs in the vision signify the exiles in Babylon, whose chastening will lead them to know Yahweh again (vv. 4–7). The bad figs, by contrast, represent King Zedekiah and his officials who are determined to remain in Jerusalem as well as those who flee southwest toward Egypt—the opposite direction to Babylon in the northeast (v. 8). The group that remains in Jerusalem, fixated on the supposed invulnerability of the city, will experience only reproach and death in this no-longer-chosen place (vv. 9–10; cf. 7:11; 1 Kings 8:16–20). The despondent exiles in Babylon will instead be preserved alive in order to return to the land after seventy years (cf. Jer. 25:11–12; 29:4–14).

  IV.D.  Jeremiah’s Vision of Bad Figs in Jerusalem and Good Figs in Babylon (24:1–10)

1.  Jeremiah’s Vision of Good and Bad Figs (24:1–3)

2.  Yahweh’s Explanation That Good Figs Signify the Exiles in Babylon (24:4–7)

3.  Yahweh’s Explanation That Bad Figs Signify Those Remaining in Judah and the Exiles in Egypt (24:8–10)

This chapter introduces briefly the motif of reversal in divine election that reverberates in later chapters. While the Response sections on those passages will explore the significance of each reversal, here it is necessary to comment generally on divine election and the dangers that potentially accompany this doctrine. Self-deception by its nature is hard to detect, and this difficulty can be compounded by a strong sense of chosenness by God.82 In Jeremiah 24 the theological rationalization that Yahweh’s people use to justify their apathy meets its match in the theological surprise that they are no longer God’s people.

The covenants in which Yahweh chose Israel as his people were foundational to their identity as a special people. Stretching back to Yahweh’s choice of Abraham (Gen. 12:1–3; 15:7; 18:19), the descendants of Abraham received a calling as a holy nation (Ex. 19:5–6). This found special expression in the royal line of David, which would never end (2 Sam. 7:8–16). David’s city of Jerusalem/Zion was also where Yahweh, through the temple, would always dwell with his people (Psalm 48).

Against all odds, this covenantal people left Egypt, established a foothold in a land of porous borders, and survived incursions from stronger powers. Although the northern kingdom of Samaria was sacked in 721 BC, the southern kingdom of Judah and the temple in Jerusalem carried on. As God’s patience with Judah became distorted into the superstition that the temple could guarantee Jerusalem’s security (Jer. 7:3–4), it became clear that the unthinkable had to happen—Jerusalem and the temple had to be destroyed.

The big picture of Judah’s last days shows that this passage is the first step in setting the unthinkable in motion. The chosen people of Yahweh are no longer in Jerusalem, which will be destroyed, but are the exiles of 598 BC—refugees in Babylon who will flourish there (Jer. 24:5–7). The chosen king is no longer Zedekiah the descendant of David (v. 8); later chapters will even assert that “my [Yahweh’s] servant” is King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon (25:9; 27:6), a Davidic title that appears in the narrative of the Davidic promises (2 Sam. 7:5, 8; cf. Jer. 33:21–22)!

In surprising the audience that good and bad figs have switched places, Jeremiah 24 thus provides an OT precursor to the NT’s parable of the good Samaritan and its reframing of how insiders and outsiders have also switched places (Luke 10:29–37). However, given that the NT parable has lost its element of surprise for most people, retelling the less familiar but equally provocative story of figs in Jeremiah 24 is likely to be more effective. Indeed, the prophet Jeremiah was nearly lynched as a traitor for his seditious message that God had seemingly shifted his choice from the Davidic king and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to the king of Babylon and the refugees in Babylon (ch. 26). The same fate of persecution by God’s own people often awaits those who are called by God to confront the sort of apostasy that comes from misunderstandings of divine election.Jeremiah 24

Jeremiah 25