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Context No. 1964 of 4322 · Jeremiah

Context · Reflection

Jeremiah 24:1-10: in context

1The LORD showed me, and behold, two baskets of figs were set before the LORD’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. 2One 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. 3Then the LORD 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 they can’t be eaten.” 4The LORD’s word came to me, saying, 5“The LORD, 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, as good. 6For 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. 7I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD. They will be my people, and I will be their God; for they will return to me with their whole heart. 8“‘As the bad figs, which can’t be eaten, they are so bad,’ surely the LORD says, ‘So I will give up Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt. 9I will even give them up to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth for evil, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places where I will drive them. 10I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence among them, until they are consumed from off the land that I gave to them and to their fathers.’”

God shows Jeremiah two baskets of figs set before the temple: one of very good figs, ripe and fine, the other of figs so bad they cannot be eaten. And God interprets: the good figs are the exiles, those carried away to Babylon, whom he will regard as good; I will set my eyes on them for good, he says, and bring them back, and give them a heart to know me. The bad figs are those who remained in the land, the king and the people left behind, whom God will give up to judgment. The assessment reverses appearances.

The vision of the two baskets overturns what appearances would suggest. By all outward reckoning, the exiles carried off to Babylon were the cursed ones, torn from their land, defeated, sent into captivity; and those who remained in Jerusalem seemed the fortunate ones, spared, still at home. But God's assessment reverses this: the exiles are the good figs, on whom he sets his eyes for good, whom he will restore and give a heart to know him; and those who stayed are the bad figs, given over to judgment. The ones who suffered the hard fate were the objects of God's favor and purpose; the ones who seemed spared were under his judgment. There is a profound truth here about how God's assessment can differ from appearances, and about how the hard path may be where his blessing lies. We tend to read circumstances as verdicts, assuming that those who suffer hardship are under God's disfavor and those who are spared are blessed. God's vision of the figs warns against this. The hard providence, the exile, the loss, the suffering, may be precisely where God is at work for good, the place where he sets his eyes on us for good and gives us a heart to know him. And the seemingly easy path, the being spared, may not be blessing at all. This reframes how we regard our own hard providences. When we are carried into an exile we would never have chosen, a loss, a hardship, a place of suffering, we may assume it is a curse, a sign of God's disfavor; and it may be the very place where God is working for our good, drawing us to himself, giving us a heart to know him, as he did for the exiles. All things work together for good, Paul says, for those who love God; and often the good God works comes through the very hardships we would have avoided. The exiles, who seemed cursed, were the good figs on whom God set his eyes for good; and the hard path we would never choose may be where God's blessing and purpose lie for us, the place where he draws us to himself and gives us the heart to know him that we would not have found on the easy road.

When I am carried into a hardship I would never have chosen, a loss or exile or place of suffering, do I assume it is a curse and a sign of God's disfavor, or can I take hope from the vision of the figs, that the hard path may be where God sets his eyes on me for good, drawing me to himself and giving me a heart to know him that I would not have found on the easy road?

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