THE TWO BASKETS OF FIGS

 7. In 617 B.C.E., how did Jehovah refer to a symbolic fig tree in a vision to Jeremiah?

⁷ Once before Jerusalem had been destroyed, by the Babylonians under King Nebuchadnezzar back in 607 B.C.E. However, 10 years before that national disaster, or in 617 B.C.E., God used the fig tree to symbolize the Jewish nation. This was when he gave to his prophet Jeremiah a portentous vision, about which Jeremiah tells us the following:

“And Jehovah showed me, and, look! two baskets of figs set before the temple of Jehovah, after Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon had carried into exile Jeconiah [or, Jehoiachin] the son of Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, and the princes of Judah and the craftsmen and the builders of bulwarks, from Jerusalem that he might bring them to Babylon. As for the one basket, the figs were very good, like early figs; and as for the other basket, the figs were very bad, so that they could not be eaten for badness.”​—Jer. 24:1, 2.

But what did those figs picture? Why, Israelites who were meant to be deported to Babylon.

 9. Those “figs” came from what symbolic tree, and whom did they include?

⁹ Those symbolic “figs” came from some symbolic tree. From which “tree”? From the nation of Israel, of which Jehoiachin the son of Jehoiakim was king for just three months and 10 days. (2 Chron. 36:9, 10; Matt. 1:11, 12) Among those whom the king of Babylon then carried into exile were Daniel, his three Hebrew companions Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, and Ezekiel. (Dan. 1:11-17; Ezek. 1:1-3) Thus, away back in Jeremiah’s time, Jehovah used the fig tree to picture the nation of his chosen people. By the time of that exile, Jeremiah had prophesied 30 years.