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, Jer 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 for "vile" signifies something horrible; and designs such figs so bad, that they even strike the eater of them with horror.
Myrevh Mynatk "tanquam ficus horrendas", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; so Stockius, p.