Jeremiah 29:17

17 this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “I will send against them sword and famine and plague, and I will make them like rotten figs, so bad they cannot be eaten.

Jeremiah 29:17 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 29:17

Thus saith the Lord of hosts, behold, I will send upon them
the sword
The sword of the Chaldeans, by which many of them should fall, as they did. The Targum is,

``I will send upon them those that kill with the sword:''

who, though they were prompted to come against the Jews, through a natural and ambitious desire of conquering and plundering, yet were sent of God; nor would they have come, had he not willed and suffered it: the famine and the pestilence;
to destroy others that escaped the sword; both these raged while Jerusalem was besieged by the Chaldeans: and will make them like vile figs, that cannot be eaten, they are so
evil;
to which they are compared, ( Jeremiah 24:8 ) . The sense is, that as they had made themselves wicked and corrupt, like naughty and rotten figs, so the Lord would deal with them as men do with such, cast them away, as good for nothing. The word ^F26 for "vile" signifies something horrible; and designs such figs so bad, that they even strike the eater of them with horror.

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FOOTNOTES:

F26 (Myrevh Mynatk) "tanquam ficus horrendas", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; so Stockius, p. 1129.

Jeremiah 29:17 In-Context

15 Because you may say, “The LORD has raised up for us prophets in Babylon,”

16 this is what the LORD says about the king who sits on David’s throne and all the people who remain in this city, your brothers who did not go with you into exile—

17 this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “I will send against them sword and famine and plague, and I will make them like rotten figs, so bad they cannot be eaten.

18 I will pursue them with sword and famine and plague. I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth—a curse, a desolation, and an object of scorn and reproach among all the nations to which I banish them.

19 I will do this because they have not listened to My words, declares the LORD, which I sent to them again and again through My servants the prophets. And neither have you exiles listened, declares the LORD.”