The big picture
Jeremiah 24 uses two baskets of figs to overturn the easiest reading of Judah's political circumstances. The vision comes after Jeconiah, officials, craftsmen, and smiths have been carried from Jerusalem to Babylon. Those deportees might look rejected, while people still in the city might look favored. The baskets reverse that assumption. The very good figs represent the exiles whom God says he has sent away "for their good." He will set his eyes on them, build and plant them, bring them back, and give them a heart to know him. Restoration is inward as well as geographical. The inedible figs represent Zedekiah, his officials, those remaining in Jerusalem, and people in Egypt. Staying in the inherited land or fleeing toward another country does not itself establish safety. The chapter therefore refuses to use location as a simple measure of divine favor. The people who have lost the city receive the promise of renewal, while those who retained or sought another refuge remain under judgment.
In this chapter
- The Difference Is Visible Before It Is Explained Jeremiah 24:1-3
The vision is carefully dated by a major removal from Jerusalem.
- Sent Away for Good, Given a Heart to Return Jeremiah 24:4-7
The good figs are the people already carried away, and the explanation makes the apparent disaster even more surprising: God says he sent them to the land of the Chaldeans "for their good." Babylon is therefore not a place beyond his attention.
- Staying Behind Does Not Mean Being Spared Jeremiah 24:8-10
The second basket includes several groups who might look safer than the deportees: Zedekiah and his princes, the remainder of Jerusalem, and people dwelling in Egypt.
Scripture beside the summary
Jeremiah · King James Version · 10Jeremiah 24:1-3
The Difference Is Visible Before It Is Explained
The vision is carefully dated by a major removal from Jerusalem. Jeconiah, princes, craftsmen, and smiths have already gone to Babylon, so the city has lost both royal leadership and skilled labor. In that setting, deportation can easily look like proof of rejection while continued residence can look like proof of favor. Before identifying anyone, however, the vision makes the contrast between the baskets unmistakable. One contains exceptionally good first-ripe figs. The other contains fruit so bad it cannot be eaten. The KJV's "naughty" simply means bad, and Jeremiah repeats the contrast with almost exaggerated clarity when God asks what he sees. The visual distinction is not the puzzle. The surprise will come when the groups are identified. Both baskets sit before the temple, placing removed and remaining people under one divine interpretation. Proximity to the sanctuary cannot settle which basket represents blessing. The vision is designed to overturn precisely the judgment that visible circumstances would most naturally encourage.
Deep dive
The heading identifies a particular disruption: Jeconiah, princes, carpenters, and smiths have been taken from Jerusalem to Babylon. The city has lost royal authority and skilled labour together. The vision is therefore given in a situation where removal could readily look like rejection and continued residence could look like favour.
The figs themselves are not difficult to distinguish. One basket is exceptionally good, like first-ripe fruit; the other is inedible. The KJV's "naughty" means bad here, not mischievous. God asks Jeremiah what he sees, and the prophet repeats the contrast with emphatic clarity. The difficulty will be in identifying the people represented, not in telling the baskets apart. Their position before the temple places both groups under a judgment that cannot be settled merely by which group remains nearer that building.
Words to trace: figs, evil, good, LORD, Babylon, basket
Verse-by-verse path
- Jeremiah 24:1
2 Kings 24:14–16 puts figures on this deportation of 597 BC: ten thousand captives, among them a thousand craftsmen and smiths, the people who could make weapons. Baskets set before the temple may suggest the basket of firstfruits a worshipper brought to the sanctuary (Deuteronomy 26:2).
- Jeremiah 24:2
First-ripe figs, bikkurah, ripened in early summer on the previous year’s growth and were prized as a delicacy: Micah 7:1 longs for “the firstripe fruit”, and Hosea 9:10 compares God’s first delight in Israel to finding such figs. The other basket has gone beyond overripe to rotten.
- Jeremiah 24:3
“What seest thou, Jeremiah?” is the question God put to him at his call, over the almond rod and the boiling pot (1:11, 1:13), and nowhere else in the book. The reply repeats “very” twice and swaps the King James “naughty” for the plainer “evil”.
Jeremiah 24:1-3
King James Version1The 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.
2One 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.
3Then 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.
Jeremiah 24:4-7
Sent Away for Good, Given a Heart to Return
The good figs are the people already carried away, and the explanation makes the apparent disaster even more surprising: God says he sent them to the land of the Chaldeans "for their good." Babylon is therefore not a place beyond his attention. He will set his eyes upon them for good, return them to the land, and reverse Jeremiah's destructive commission through building instead of pulling down and planting instead of plucking up. The promise is not limited to geography. God will give them a heart to know him, and their return to him will be wholehearted. That language prevents the vision from becoming a claim that every deportee was already morally superior before exile. The future good includes a transformed relation brought about by God himself. "They shall be my people, and I will be their God" is attached here to knowledge and return, not used as a slogan that makes present response irrelevant. Removal from Jerusalem has become the setting in which a deeper restoration is promised.
Deep dive
The interpretation locates divine purpose inside an event that outwardly looks like the end of favour. God has sent these people into the land of the Chaldeans "for their good" and will set his eyes upon them accordingly. Babylon is not outside the reach of his attention. The change of place has not made the displaced people unknowable or forgotten.
The promise pairs the constructive verbs of Jeremiah's commission with explicit negatives: building rather than pulling down, planting rather than plucking up. The language does more than predict movement back across a border. It announces a settled reversal of the dismantling that has defined the book's warnings.
The given heart makes the restoration inward as well as geographical. God will give them a heart to know him, and their return will be wholehearted. The vision does not establish that every deportee had already been morally exemplary before removal. It speaks of God's intention and the transformed relation he will bring about. The familiar declaration that they will be his people and he their God is therefore attached to knowledge and return, not treated as an unchanged slogan available regardless of response.
Words to trace: good, LORD, heart, land, acknowledge, build
Verse-by-verse path
- Jeremiah 24:4
In the same years Ezekiel, among the deportees in Babylon, heard what the people left in Jerusalem were saying of the exiles: “Get you far from the LORD: unto us is this land given in possession” (Ezekiel 11:15). The word that follows answers that claim directly.
- Jeremiah 24:5
“Acknowledge” is hikkir, to regard with favour, the word Ruth uses when Boaz takes notice of a foreigner (Ruth 2:10). “Whom I have sent” claims the deportation as God’s own act, the same language as the letter to the exiles in 29:4 and 29:7.
- Jeremiah 24:6
Amos 9:4 had threatened, “I will set mine eyes upon them for evil, and not for good”; this verse reverses his words exactly. It also answers 21:10, where God set his face against the city “for evil, and not for good”. Build and plant are the good half of 1:10.
- Jeremiah 24:7
The promise looks ahead to the new covenant of 31:33–34, where God writes his law on the heart and “they shall all know me”. The letter of chapter 29 adds the same condition from the human side: “when ye shall search for me with all your heart” (29:13).
Jeremiah 24:4-7
King James Version4Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
5Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel; Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good.
6For I will set mine eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them again to this land: and I will build them, and not pull them down; and I will plant them, and not pluck them up.
7And I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.
Jeremiah 24:8-10
Staying Behind Does Not Mean Being Spared
The second basket includes several groups who might look safer than the deportees: Zedekiah and his princes, the remainder of Jerusalem, and people dwelling in Egypt. Their locations differ, but neither staying in the inherited land nor moving toward another major power secures the future. The bad figs are defined by the divine purpose announced for them, not by the fact that they avoided Jeconiah's deportation. Their consequences reverse the language given to the good basket. Instead of eyes set upon them for good, there is removal for hurt. Instead of planting and rebuilding, sword, famine, and pestilence consume them from the land. Their downfall also becomes public speech as reproach, proverb, taunt, and curse among the nations. The final reference to land given to them and their fathers is especially sharp. Inheritance is real, but possession is not automatic. The vision distinguishes opposed futures that outward geography alone could never have disclosed.
Deep dive
The second basket includes more than the king. His princes, the residue of Jerusalem, and those in Egypt are named together. Neither remaining in the inherited land nor relocating toward another powerful neighbour secures the future these people might assume. The vision refuses to let geography alone act as a verdict on their standing.
The consequences reverse the promise just given to the deportees. Instead of attention for good, there is removal for hurt; instead of being planted, there is the sword, famine, and pestilence until they are consumed from the land. Their condition will also become language used by others: reproach, proverb, taunt, and curse. Public disgrace is joined to physical displacement and death.
The last reference to the land given to them and their fathers keeps the loss within the covenant relationship. It is precisely inherited ground that they can lose. The chapter's distinction is not between people with a history and people without one, but between opposed divine purposes that the visible fact of staying or leaving had not disclosed.
Words to trace: land, evil, consumed, curse, deliver, drive
Verse-by-verse path
- Jeremiah 24:8
“Them that dwell in the land of Egypt” were refugees already there, perhaps from Jehoahaz’s deportation in 609 BC or from pro-Egyptian circles. Chapters 42–44 record a much larger flight to Egypt later. The rotten figs return in 29:17, where Zedekiah’s Jerusalem is made “like vile figs”.
- Jeremiah 24:9
The four terms, reproach, proverb, taunt and curse, draw on Deuteronomy 28:37, where Israel is to become “an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword”; the Hebrew for “taunt” and “byword” is the same word, sheninah, a sharp saying repeated at someone’s expense.
- Jeremiah 24:10
The Book of Jeremiah records how it ended for this basket: Zedekiah’s sons and the princes of Judah were slaughtered at Riblah, and the king was blinded and taken to Babylon in chains (52:10–11). “Consumed” is the verb tamam, to be finished, the opposite of the planting promised in verse 6.
Jeremiah 24:8-10
King James Version8And as the evil figs, which cannot be eaten, they are so evil; surely thus saith the LORD, So will I give Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the residue of Jerusalem, that remain in this land, and them that dwell in the land of Egypt:
9And I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth for their hurt, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places whither I shall drive them.
10And I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, among them, till they be consumed from off the land that I gave unto them and to their fathers.
Questions to keep in mind while reading
- Identify the historical crisis, covenant failure, warning, and promised hope.
- Distinguish the prophet’s immediate audience from later biblical connections.
- Do not turn present-day headlines into confident fulfillment claims without textual evidence.
Text first
Where readers differ
The chapter summary begins with what the passage says and how its parts fit together. It does not assume one denomination has already settled every question. Where a conclusion depends on a tradition, literary theory, or historical reconstruction, that dependence is named openly.
The KJV text is presented first. Interpretive conclusions are labeled, and differences are introduced only when they help a reader understand why serious communities do not always reach the same answer.
Comparative interpretive notes for this chapter are in preparation. Until reviewed notes are ready, this page separates the KJV text from summary and application without claiming that serious readers agree on every question.
Questions beneath the surface
- What account of God, human freedom, responsibility, and the good life emerges from Jeremiah 24?
- Which tension does the chapter refuse to resolve quickly?
- What changes when the chapter is read as part of the whole canon rather than as an isolated moral lesson?
- Where might a sincere reader confuse a familiar tradition with something the text states directly?
Questions for serious personal contemplation
These open-ended questions make room for tension, honest response, prayer, and conclusions that remain accountable to the chapter.
Observe without rushing
What part of Jeremiah 24 makes you stop, feel unsettled, or feel surprised, and why?
Which detail in the passage would be easiest to overlook? How does that detail change your understanding?
Where do you see tension between what happens and this focus: Jeremiah 24 develops its own movement around figs, LORD, good, evil, land?
What important question does the passage leave open instead of resolving quickly?
Examine your inner life honestly
Which person, response, fear, or desire in the passage feels most like your own life right now?
What assumption about God, other people, or yourself does this text challenge?
Which part would you rather soften, avoid, or explain away too quickly? What might that reaction reveal?
If this Scripture could ask you one direct question, what do you think it would ask?
Respond with wisdom and courage
What do you need to remember, confess, grieve, thank God for, or trust after reading this passage?
How might another faithful person read this situation differently without ignoring the text?
What obedient response would be costly, uncomfortable, or slow, yet still faithful to Scripture?
What question will you carry into prayer this week, and which verses will you keep in front of you?
Music and video connected to the passage
Related media appears when its Scripture reference overlaps this study. Music and video can illuminate a theme while the biblical text remains the foundation.
