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Jeremiah 24:8-10.  But like the bad figs, which are so bad they cannot be eaten,’ says the LORD, ‘so will I deal with Zedekiah king of Judah, his officials and the survivors from Jerusalem, whether they remain in this land or live in Egypt.  I will make them abhorrent and an offense to all the kingdoms of the earth, a reproach and a byword, a curse and an object of ridicule, wherever I banish them.  I will send the sword, famine and plague against them until they are destroyed from the land I gave to them and their ancestors.

I find most of Jeremiah difficult because of the revealed biblical truth I must face up to concerning God’ righteous judgement on his people.  But I find the truth in the above verses particularly hard.  Israel’s Covenant LORD is making a clear distinction between those of his Covenant People who acted in obedience to his direction through his faithful Prophet, and those who did not.

The disobedience of the latter who, in the vision given to Jeremiah, are bad and totally inedible figs, leads to their utter rejection by the LORD, their ‘promise-giving’ and faithful ‘promise-keeping’ God, so that instead of being a blessing to all the nations of the earth as intended, they will be abhorrent and an offense to all the kingdoms of the earth, a reproach and a byword, a curse and an object of ridicule.

These are very strong words of rejection!  My mind jumps ahead 26 centuries to today: the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who have acted in obedience to God’s direction and acknowledged their God’s provision of their Promised Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ – the ‘good’ figs – and have turned to him in repentance-and-faith, have been ‘given a new heart to know him (cf Jeremiah 31:31-37), and are enjoying his promised blessing of eternal life in the ‘new Israel’, the ‘new Jerusalem’ the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, in fellowship with people around the whole world from ‘every nation and tribe and tongue’, singing together the praise of their God in all his glory.

Their disobedient compatriots on the other hand, who have rejected their Messiah, are suffering all the things that Jeremiah predicted.  Glance back through the Prophet’s list in bold above and assess if this is not true, as we reflect on their current futile struggle for their land and their dealing with evil wide-spread anti-Semitism.  Let us be both praying earnestly for, and working actively towards, the fulfilment of Zechariah’s later prophecy concerning the time when their God “will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication.  They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.”

“O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appear.  Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.  O come, thou Rod of Jesse, free thine own from Satan’s tyranny;  from depths of hell thy people save, Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel” (Karl Spitta). 

– Bruce Christian