What’s Happening?
Shortly after Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, sacked Jerusalem and exiled its people, God gave Jeremiah a vision of two baskets of figs that portray two very different futures for God’s people (Jeremiah 24:1–2). The first basket is full of ripe and juicy figs. They represent the exiles who have left Judah and gone to Babylon. God will protect them while in captivity and one day bring them back to their homeland, where he will rebuild and replant all they have lost. Once they have returned, God will also transform them. They were exiled for their hard-hearted resistance to God and his laws, but on the day they return, God will give them hearts that know him and delight in his ways—so they will never be exiled again (Jeremiah 24:3–7).
But the second basket is full of inedible, rotted figs. They represent those who refused exile and attempted to preserve Judah’s power, land, and statehood apart from repentance. For their refusal to accept God’s purifying judgment, these figs will be destroyed and scattered, never returning to the homeland God had given them (Jeremiah 24:8–10).
Jeremiah then recounts how he had accurately predicted this outcome over a decade earlier and begged Judah to change course (Jeremiah 25:1–3). Before Jeremiah’s time, God sent many prophetic servants who implored Judah to turn from their idolatry and injustice or lose the land God had given them (Jeremiah 25:4–6). But since Judah refused to listen, God appointed a new servant—Nebuchadnezzar—to confront his people (Jeremiah 25:7–9). Unlike God’s prophets, this servant would be a brutal ruler who would devastate everything in his path. Yet Jeremiah also prophesied that Babylon’s rule would be limited. After seventy years, God would bring his people home and restore them to the land (Jeremiah 25:10–14). If Jeremiah was right about Judah’s destruction, God’s people could be confident that the promise toward restoration had already begun. Instead of resisting Babylon’s power, they were called to submit to it in hope, trusting that exile would lead to renewal.
Then, in another vision, God tells Jeremiah to take a cup of wine and make the nations drink until they stagger. This vision represents how God confronts and unmasks human violence, pride, and injustice throughout the world (Jeremiah 25:15–16). Starting with Judah, nation after nation will drink from this cup, and empire after empire will fall beneath the weight of its own corruption (Jeremiah 25:17–25). Not even Babylon itself would escape. It too will drink from the same cup and fall (Jeremiah 25:26). Jeremiah’s message to the nations is clear: no people, no empire, and no power stands outside God’s justice—especially when judgment begins with God’s own people (Jeremiah 25:27–29). The sword that cuts through Judah will ultimately cut through every nation that builds its future on violence and oppression (Jeremiah 25:30–38).
Where is the Gospel?
God’s justice is impartial, but it is never purposeless. Jeremiah showed the nations that God’s dealings with Judah were not arbitrary acts of anger but part of a larger plan to confront evil, dismantle destructive powers, and restore his creation. Exile was not the end of God’s story with his people—it was the means by which their hearts would be healed and their relationship with God renewed.
This pattern comes to its fullest expression in Jesus. God’s ultimate chosen servant was not an earthly prophet or a king, but his Son. Jesus entered fully into the condition of God’s exiled people and carried Israel’s story to its decisive moment. On the night before his death, Jesus spoke of a cup placed before him—a cup representing the suffering, violence, and judgment that accompany humanity’s rebellion and the empires that enforce it (Luke 22:42). Jesus did not flee this moment. He stepped into it as the faithful representative of his people.
Jesus was handed over to Rome—the same kind of empire that once carried Judah into exile. Like Israel, he was driven outside the city and handed over to foreign power. In his death, Jesus entered the depths of humanity’s exile. Yet this descent was not the final word. Just as God promised that exile would give way to restoration, God raised Jesus from the dead. Resurrection declared that exile does not have the final say, and that God’s purpose has always been renewal, not destruction.
Jesus’ death did not end the story with judgment—it opened the way home. His resurrection marks the beginning of the return from exile, the restoration of God’s people, and the renewal of human hearts. As Jesus told his disciples, we too must drink this cup (Matthew 20:23). We will suffer as he suffered (1 Peter 2:21). But suffering with Jesus is always restorative. When we suffer like Jesus, we will be raised like Jesus too. So take heart when you suffer, for it only ensures that the promise of restoration has already begun.
See for Yourself
I pray that the Holy Spirit will open your eyes to see the God who confronts evil in order to heal his world. And may you see Jesus as the faithful servant who entered exile with us and leads us into restoration.