Under the type of good and bad figs, 1-3, he foretells the restoration of those who were in captivity, 4-7; and the desolation of Zedekiah and the rest, 8-10.
1 The LORD showed me, and behold, two baskets of figs were set before the temple of the LORD, after Nebuchadnezzar 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. 2 One basket had very good figs, even like the figs that are first ripe, and the other basket had very poor figs, which could not be eaten they were so bad. 3 Then the LORD said to me, "What do you see, Jeremiah?" And I said, "Figs. The good figs, very good, and the bad, very bad, that cannot be eaten they are so bad."
4 Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 5 "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: 'Like these good figs, so I will acknowledge those who are carried away captive of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good. 6 For I will set my eyes upon them for good and bring them back to this land. And I will build them and not pull them down. And I will plant them and not pluck them up. 7 And I will give them a 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 to me with their whole heart.
8 'And as the bad figs, which cannot be eaten they are so bad,' surely thus says the LORD: 'So I will give up Zedekiah the king of Judah, his princes, the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt. 9 And I will make them a horror among all the kingdoms of the earth for their hurt, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places where I shall drive them. 10 And I 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.'"
Matthew Henry Commentary - Jeremiah, Chapter 24[➚]