Verse 17. - I will send upon them, etc.; alluding to Jeremiah 24:10. Vile figs; literally, figs exciting a shudder. The figure involves an allusion to Jeremiah 24:2, 3.

29:8-19 Let men beware how they call those prophets whom they choose after their own fancies, and how they consider their fancies and dreams to be revelations from God. False prophets flatter people in their sins, because they love to be flattered; and they speak smoothly to their prophets, that their prophets may speak smoothly to them. God promises that they should return after seventy years were accomplished. By this it appears, that the seventy years of the captivity are not to be reckoned from the last captivity, but the first. It will be the bringing to pass of God's good word to them. This shall form God's purposes. We often do not know our own minds, but the Lord is never at an uncertainty. We are sometimes ready to fear that God's designs are all against us; but as to his own people, even that which seems evil, is for good. He will give them, not the expectations of their fears, or the expectations of their fancies, but the expectations of their faith; the end he has promised, which will be the best for them. When the Lord pours out an especial spirit of prayer, it is a good sign that he is coming toward us in mercy. Promises are given to quicken and encourage prayer. He never said, Seek ye me in vain. Those who remained at Jerusalem would be utterly destroyed, notwithstanding what the false prophets said to the contrary. The reason has often been given, and it justifies the eternal ruin of impenitent sinners; Because they have not hearkened to my words; I called, but they refused.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 (z) for "vile" signifies something horrible; and designs such figs so bad, that they even strike the eater of them with horror.

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