TEXT [Commentary]

8. Jesus curses the fig tree (21:18-22; cf. Mark 11:19-25)

18 In the morning, as Jesus was returning to Jerusalem, he was hungry, 19 and he noticed a fig tree beside the road. He went over to see if there were any figs, but there were only leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” And immediately the fig tree withered up.

20 The disciples were amazed when they saw this and asked, “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?”

21 Then Jesus told them, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith and don’t doubt, you can do things like this and much more. You can even say to this mountain, ‘May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will happen. 22 You can pray for anything, and if you have faith, you will receive it.”

NOTES

21:18-19 he was hungry. Jesus looked for figs on a roadside tree and found the tree had leaves but no fruit (cf. 21:34).

May you never bear fruit again! Jesus pronounced a curse upon the tree, and it immediately withered, showing that it indeed would never bear fruit again. The cursing of the fig tree amounts to a prophetic parable in action (cf. Isa 8:1-4; Jer 13:1-9; Ezek 5:1-4; Hos 1:2-9). The tree probably should be understood as a symbol, not of Israel as a whole (Blomberg 1992:318; Hagner 1995:603-04), but of Jerusalem and the leaders of Israel, particularly the Temple leaders (Davies and Allison 1997:148, 151-52; Overman 1995: 295-96). Fruitless fig trees are used in OT prophetic texts as symbols of judgment (Isa 34:4; Jer 8:13; 24:1-10; Hos 2:12; Joel 1:7).

21:20-22 How did the fig tree wither so quickly? The object lesson of the fig tree received a new twist when Jesus responded to his disciples’ question. (In Mark’s account this happens on the next day; Matthew’s account has evidently telescoped events that originally took place over two days into a single narrative; cf. Mark 11:12-14, 20-24). The disciples’ amazement at how rapidly the tree withered overrides their perception of why the tree has withered and what it signifies. Again they lacked understanding of what Jesus was doing, and their question was beside the point. But Jesus used the occasion to teach them about faith and answers to prayer.

if you have faith and don’t doubt, you can do things like this and much more. If the disciples pray in faith (6:8; 7:7-11; 18:19), they will see even greater things than a tree wither, such as a mountain being thrown into the sea (cf. 17:19-20; Luke 17:6; Rom 4:20; 1 Cor 13:2; Jas 1:6). This emphasis on believing prayer for the power of God to do what is humanly impossible must be correlated with the emphasis on asking for God’s will to be de done, as found in the Lord’s Prayer (6:9-13).

this mountain. If Jesus was speaking of the Temple mount when he referred to “this mountain” being thrown into the sea, the cursing of the fig tree portends the destruction of the Temple in AD 70 by the Romans (Telford 1980).

COMMENTARY [Text]

The cursing of the fig tree is the third symbolic act of Jesus in this context. Jesus had ridden a donkey’s colt into the city and cleared its Temple of commercial activity. These acts respectively convey Jesus’ kingly and prophetic roles. The prophetic role continues in the cursing of the fig tree, which, by all accounts, appears to be one of the strangest things Jesus ever did. But if one consults the Old Testament passages cited above (in the notes on 21:18-19), one will recognize that the symbolic acts of the prophets (living parables) were often strange. The rebuke or cursing of the fig tree conveys two theological lessons.

First, the barren tree pictures the fruitless religious leaders, whose Temple was recently cleared. The leaders did not appreciate Jesus, while the children did (21:15-16). They responded to Jesus’ undeniable miracles by questioning Jesus’ authority instead of praising God for his blessings. The fruitlessness of the leaders has been stressed all along in Matthew. It is pointed out very strongly again here, but Jesus’ full and final denunciation will come in Matthew 23. The rejection of God’s messengers will have consequences. Second, the weak disciples still need to develop faith in the power of God to answer their prayers. Their “little faith” was rebuked by Jesus before (6:30; 8:26; 14:31; 16:8; 17:20), and once again they were challenged to grow in it. It is appropriate that this lesson occurs in a context connected with the Temple, since it is “called a house of prayer” (21:13; Isa 56:7). Perhaps the reason these two seemingly unrelated lessons are put together here is to contrast the fruitlessness of the unbelieving religious leaders with the potential fruitfulness of Jesus’ believing disciples (Hagner 1995:606-607).