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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Mark 11:12 - 11:14
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
The Miracle of the Fig-Tree.
The curse upon the tree:
v. 12. And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany, He was hungry;
v. 13. and seeing a fig-tree afar off having leaves, He came, if haply He might find anything thereon; and when He came to it, He found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet.
v. 14. And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter forever. And His disciples heard it.
So eager, so concerned, was Jesus about the work of His ministry and about various other matters that had come to His attention that He did not even take time to eat on Monday morning. On their way from Bethany to Jerusalem He felt the pangs of hunger. There was a fig-tree growing by the side of the road, which was in full foliage, though the season was early. But when Jesus went over to it, either to find some of last year's late figs, which sometimes matured in the spring, or to find fruit of the new crop, He was disappointed. All the strength of the tree had gone into foliage; there were no figs. This tree was a type and picture of the Jewish people, and Christ's purpose in performing this peculiar miracle was to bring the attention of His disciples to that fact. The Jews also had the form of godliness, while they denied its power. Three years the Lord had worked in the midst of this nation, in the North and ill the South, but there was little evidence of any Jesuits. The great majority of the people wanted nothing of the Messiah. There was much profession of religion, much boasting of being God's own, peculiar people, but no real, tangible proof of a worship in spirit and ill truth. And so this nation, which God had chosen as His own, would become subject to the curse, just as Jesus here pronounced the curse upon its type, the barren fig-tree. Mark notes that the disciples heard the words of Jesus as He spoke to the tree.