I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your fathers as the first ripe in the fig tree at its first season; But they came to Baal Peor, and consecrated themselves to the shameful thing, And became abominable like that which they loved.
As the first ripe — Those grapes, whose bud having come first, and being exposed most to the sun, have been the first ripe upon the tree which tree was now in the vigour of youth, and bore fruit for the first time. A metaphor of the rising prosperity of the Jewish state.