II. Prepare for a Life in Exile (24:1-29:32)
A. Good Figs Gone for Export (24:1-10)
24 1 Yahweh showed me, and there! two baskets of figs situated in front of the
temple of Yahweh-after Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, had exiled Jeco-
niah son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the princes of Judah and the crafts-
men and the smiths from Jerusalem and brought them to Babylon.^2 The one
basket had very good figs, like the early figs, and the other basket very bad figs,
which could not be eaten because they were so bad.^3 And Yahweh said to me:
'What do you see, Jeremiah?' And I said: 'Figs! The good figs are very good,
and the bad ones very bad, which cannot be eaten because they are so bad.'(^4) And the word of Yahweh came to me:
(^5) Thus said Yahweh, God of Israel: Like these good figs, so will I regard the
exiles of Judah whom I sent away from this place to the land of the Chal-
deans-for good;^6 and I will keep my eye upon them for good, and I will
bring them back to this land, and I will build them up and not overthrow,
and I will plant them and not uproot.^7 And I will give them a heart to know
me, for I am Yahweh, and they will be a people to me, and I, I will be God
to them, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.
(^8) And like the bad figs, which could not be eaten because they were so bad,
indeed thus said Yahweh: So will I make Zedekiah, king of Judah and his
princes and the remnant of Jerusalem, the ones who remain in this land,
and the ones who dwell in the land of Egypt. "Yes, I will make them a
fright, a calamity to all the kingdoms of the earth, a reproach and a proverb,
a taunt and a swearword, in all the places where I shall disperse them.
(^10) And I will send against them the sword, the famine, and the pestilence,
until they are consumed from upon the soil that I gave to them and to their
fathers.
RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION
Here, following the King and Prophet Appendix (chaps. 21-23), begins an-
other major section in the book of Jeremiah, although the LXX is different in
that the Foreign Nation Oracles are located after 25: 13a. In the MT, a section
comprising chaps. 24-36 contains: 1) "The Book of Restoration" (30-3 3 ),