The good figs are the exiles, the cream of the crop of Judah; and the bad figs are the poorer, less talented people who remained in the mostly depopulated Jerusalem during the Babylonian Captivity. This parable promises that it will be the exiles who will return to Jerusalem and be the bearers of the new age of renewal and restoration.

God promises that he personally will watch over the development of the exiles and will provide for them and do them good even while they were in captivity. After seventy years, he promises that he will cause them to return to their land, and he will reconstruct them into his faithful people by giving them a mind and heart that loves and "knows" God and by moving them to repent and to return to God with all their heart. With this repentance God will restore to them the blessings of the covenant: union and communion with Him.