Flowers of the fig near Um Qais, Jordan. At this stage, the wasp enters and pollinates the flowers.
FIG TREES HAVE BEEN VALUED FOR millennia for their sweet, delicious fruits. Figs are basic ingredients in several modern foods, including the cookies known as Fig Newton.
Because of their ubiquity and utility in the Middle East, figs have a prominent role in both the Quran and the Bible. In fact, one entire sura of the Quran is called simply “The Fig”: “By the fig, and by the olive! By Mount Sinai, and by this inviolate city. We created man in a most noble image and in the end We shall reduce him to the lowest of the low: except the believers who do good works, for theirs shall be a boundless recompense. What then after this can make you deny the last judgement? Is God not the best of judges?” (Sura 95:1–8, Dawood). I have quoted the entire passage because of the association of fig with testimony and judgment, a theme also present in the Bible.
For example, Jeremiah told the people to submit to Nebuchednezzar, who had conquered their land. If they did, they would be blessed; if not, disaster would come upon them. To make this point, two baskets of figs are set in front of the temple to signify two groups of Jews—good figs and bad figs. Those who, in compliance with the word of the Lord to Jeremiah, had submitted to the King of Babylon are regarded as good and would be planted in the land: “The Lord showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of the temple of the Lord. One basket had very good figs, like those that ripen early; the other basket had very poor figs, so bad they could not be eaten. Then the Lord asked me, ‘What do you see, Jeremiah?’ ‘Figs,’ I answered. ‘The good ones are very good, but the poor ones are so bad they cannot be eaten.’”
“‘But like the poor figs, which are so bad they cannot be eaten, says the LORD, ‘so will I deal with Zedekiah, king of Judah, his officials and the survivors from Jerusalem, whether they remain in this land or live in Egypt” (Jeremiah 24:1b–4, 8, NIV). Having one time ill advisedly taken figs in my luggage from the Middle East to England, I have a firsthand experience of what bad figs are.
Another example of judgment associated with figs is from the life of Jesus. The only thing Jesus cursed in His lifetime was a fig tree: “In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!’” (Mark 11:20–21, NIV).
The common fig, Ficus carica, is the most widely planted fruit tree in Bible lands. The tree lives up to 200 years, so is often planted with olive trees, which are also long lived. It is a many-branched tree, with the branches rising from low on the trunk. All parts of the tree contain a white, milky sap, which can cause dermatitis in sensitive individuals. Leaves are about the size of a hand and have three main lobes and a hairy undersurface.
The fig is the last tree in the Middle East to produce leaves in the spring. While the leaves of almond and other deciduous trees are fully developed, the fig is just beginning to leaf out. Jesus refers to this fact: “Take the fig tree as a parable: as soon as its twigs grow supple and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. So with you, when you see these things happening: know that he is near, right at the gates” (Mark 13:28–29, NJB). This verse about the beginning of summer is often used to interpret Bible prophecies.
The best known fig leaves may be those used to cover the nakedness of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden: “At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves” (Genesis 3:7, NLT). Fig leaves may be conspicuous, but fig flowers are nondescript.
Undersurface of fig leaf with developing figs, in May, near Saladin Citadel, northern Syria.
Fig in March in northern Galilee, Israel. The syconia (which contain the flowers) are developing and the leaves have not yet emerged.
Why does Jesus not ask his disciples to look for the flowers of the fig? Because they are not seen by the casual observer. More than once when lecturing to Middle East audiences, I have asked how many have seen flowers of figs. Most often the response is that figs do not have flowers! The flowers of the fig are so furtive that even the farmers who grow the figs have not seen them. The uncolored, unisexual flowers are contained in a specialized, fleshy structure termed a syconium, or fig. Wild fig trees, known as caprifigs, have many female flowers and few male ones. The cultivated fig tree has only female flowers.
How do the sexes meet? This process is among the wonders of nature. A minute wasp, barely discernible to the naked eye, deposits eggs in the flowers of the caprifig and turns these flowers into galls—hard, inedible structures. The female wasps that develop from the galls are fertilized by the males while still in the flower, and leave the syconium through a small opening at the top of the fig. On the way out, the wasps must pass the male flowers and are dusted with pollen.
Free from the fig in which they were born, the female wasps then carry pollen to the female flower to effect fertilization. Because the egg-depositing structures of the wasps are too short, they cannot deposit eggs in the ovaries of the cultivated fig; while in the wild fig, the ovaries are within reach and therefore are turned into galls yielding inedible fruits. Fruit production in the fig is thus totally dependent on the wasp as a carrier of the pollen from the male figs. But modern varieties of fig trees can produce delicious fruit independent of wasp pollination.
Technically, the fruit is not a true fruit but rather a multiple fruit: each of the tiny fig flowers develops into a separate fruit, and these hundreds of tiny fruits together produce the fruit we call a fig.
If figs are not pollinated, they turn brown and fall from the tree. This may account for the biblical image in Isaiah: “All the stars of the heavens will be dissolved and the sky rolled up like a scroll; all the starry host will fall like withered leaves from the vine, like shriveled figs from the fig tree” (Isaiah 34:4, NIV).
The chief ancient use of the fig was for its fruit, as we read in the divine commentary on the tree: “The fig tree replied, ‘Must I forgo my sweetness, forgo my excellent fruit, to go and sway over the trees?’” (Judges 9:11, NJB). In the case of King Hezekiah, figs were used medicinally as a poultice: “Isaiah had said, ‘Prepare a poultice of figs and put it on the boil so he may recover’” (Isaiah 38:21; II Kings 20:7, MSG).
A fig tree may produce several crops in one year. There are many different varieties of figs: some with black fruits, some green, some red. Because the fig contains a high concentration of sugar, the fruits can be dried and stored for later use, a practice referred to several places in the Bible (I Samuel 25:18, 30:11–12).
The fig is often associated with grapes and is one of the “six species of the land” (Deuteronomy 8:8). Blessing for Israel is often symbolized by the prosperity of the grape and the fig together (I Kings 4:25; Micah 4:4; Zechariah 3:10).
Luscious green, black, red, or yellow fruits belie the furtive nature of the sex lives of figs. The flowers are never exposed, and pollination takes place within a special chamber. Perhaps this is the reason that the fig is sometimes associated with eschatology. On the other hand, it is also clearly presented for what it is—a common, easily grown tree with a delicious fruit.
