NOTES for Jer 24:1-10

The two baskets of figs symbolize two parts of the people. But the true difference between them does not lie at all in the fact that some have already ended up in captivity and tasted the disasters and hardships of wartime, while the others still have this ahead of them. What matters far more is the inner response to these trials.

The two robbers crucified beside the Savior experienced exactly the same sufferings on the cross, but their responses were different, and the conclusions they reached in the face of death became diametrically opposed. So it is here: different representatives of one and the same people do not respond in the same way to the same sufferings. And yet part of the people, even if for now a smaller part, has already entered the path of repentance; this path will be long, but it will bear good fruit.

Those who are likened to bad figs and have not yet taken the path toward the Lord also have the possibility of repentance. But for now they are not such people - and they are going toward death, which is vividly shown by the rotting of the discarded fruit.

A tremendous reversal of symbols takes place in the prophet's mind. Jerusalem, the holy city, stronghold of the true faith and citadel of the chosen people, is left to be dishonored by the enemy like an overripe fig. Babylon, by contrast—the capital of a hostile state that carries its pagan gods to every people it conquers—becomes the land of salvation. Yet despite this reversal, God continues to expect the same thing from His people: there, in a foreign land, they must return to Him “with all their heart” and become His people, and He will become their God. Not the God of their king or the God of their homeland, but their own God. This has happened many times in history: when God becomes a national shrine or an ancestral inheritance, everything collapses, all the symbols are overturned, and in the approaching catastrophe only people and the living God remain.