Year 2, Week 13, Day 2 Bible Reading Observations

Year 2, Week 13, Day 2

I have a brief observation for today’s reading of Jeremiah 24-25.

Today’s reading continues the second segment of Jeremiah. This second segment of Jeremiah (chapters 21-29) consists of two sets of messages that provide specific historical contexts. Today’s reading is the second message (chapter 24) and third message (chapter 25) in this segment. This second message is set in about 597 BC, about a decade earlier than the immediately preceding message (chapters 21-23). Jeremiah gave this word about ten years before the final destruction of Judah, the Babylonians began carrying some of the people into captivity: “After Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken into exile from Jerusalem Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, together with the officials of Judah, the craftsmen, and the metal workers, and had brought them to Babylon” (Jeremiah 24:1a). During this time a second wave of people were deported to Babylon as captives. The message to Jeremiah was a vision from the LORD: “the LORD showed me this vision: behold, two baskets of figs placed before the temple of the LORD” (Jeremiah 24:1b). The third message is set in about 605 BC, about eight years prior to the second message and about eighteen years prior to the first message. In other words, the chapter sequence is inverse of the historical chronology. By the way, it was probably about this time that Daniel was taken into captivity as a part of the first wave of deportations. Jeremiah 25 states that Judah would be heading for seventy years of Babylonian captivity: “This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years” (Jeremiah 25:11). Then after the seventy years, Babylonia would be judged “Then after seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, declares the LORD, making the land an everlasting waste” (Jeremiah 25:12).

One of the things that struck me from today’s reading was the significance of the vision of two baskets: "One basket had very good figs, like first-ripe figs, but the other basket had very bad figs, so bad that they could not be eaten. And the LORD said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” I said, “Figs, the good figs very good, and the bad figs very bad, so bad that they cannot be eaten” (Jeremiah 24:2-3). This vision occurs shortly after Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon partially deports Judah’s population (the second wave of deportations and a decade before the final destruction of Jerusalem). King Jeconiah, son of King Jehoiakim, and others are deported, while Zedekiah is installed over Jerusalem as a puppet of Babylon. The vision of two baskets pertains to the group that was deported in contrast to the group who remained.

The interpretation of the vision surprises the remaining inhabitants of Jerusalem: “But thus says the LORD: Like the bad figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten, so will I treat Zedekiah the king of Judah, his officials, the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt. I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a reproach, a byword, a taunt, and a curse in all the places where I shall drive them. And I will send sword, famine, and pestilence upon them, until they shall be utterly destroyed from the land that I gave to them and their fathers” (Jeremiah 24:8-10). There is not a good future for those who remain in Jerusalem, for they are the bad fruit that will be destroyed. Other chapters in Jeremiah will reveal how Zedekiah rejected Jeremiah’s words: “Zedekiah the son of Josiah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made king in the land of Judah, reigned…But neither he nor his servants nor the people of the land listened to the words of the LORD that he spoke through Jeremiah the prophet” (Jeremiah 37:1-2). And thus, Zedekiah proves Jeremiah to be true.

The good fruit—those taken captive—would experience a very different outcome: “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Like these good figs, so I will regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I have sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans. I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up, and not tear them down; I will plant them, and not pluck them up. I will give them a heart to know 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” (Jeremiah 24:5-7). While the period of captivity is a time of punishment, it would be a chastisement for the good of those deported. The result of the season captivity would be two fold. First, the good outcome of the deportation would be that the LORD would once again return His captive people to the Land. Second, and even more importantly, the good outcome of the deportation would be that the LORD would return His people to Himself, “I will give them a heart to know 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” The chief indictment against Judah, up to this point, was their heart problem-they failed to trust, love, and worship the LORD from their heart. But through captivity and its subsequent deliverance, that heart problem would be remedied. Ironically, Babylon would be the place where true faith would survive and thrive. What was viewed as a disaster would work for their good.

What struck you in today’s reading? What questions were prompted from today’s reading?

Pastor Joe