Mark 11:12-13

‘And on the next day, when they had come out from Bethany, he was hungry. And seeing a fig tree at a distance with leaves, he approached to see if perhaps he might find anything on it. And when he came to it he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs.’

What is now being described Mark undoubtedly saw as an acted out parable connected with His visits to the Temple. This is demonstrated by the way in which he treats the material. The fig tree and the Temple were clearly to be seen as similar. in that they made a great show for visitors, but inwardly they were fruitless and barren.

‘He was hungry.’ If this is taken literally we would probably say peckish. He may well have been up for many hours in private prayer. But Mark also recognises here another hunger. His hunger for the response of Jerusalem to His pleas, and for the crowds who are astonished at His teaching (unlike the Chief Priests and Scribes).

At what point Jesus realised that this fig tree could provide a profound object lesson we are not told. That He is mentioned as being hungry may suggest that His hunger brought the idea to His mind of a divine demonstration of what was to happen to Jerusalem, but that He expected to find figs so far out of season, unless they were dried up old figs or it was an early fig tree, is questionable. He knew as well as the next man that there would be no figs at Passover time (although this may not necessarily be so. Some do claim that figs have been known, although rarely, at Passover time).

What then was He expecting? He may rather have expected to find the barely edible green knops that come before the actual figs arrive (possibly the ‘green figs’ of Song of Solomon 2:13). But when He found none from His inspection of the fig tree it seemingly brought home to Him what He had discovered about Israel. That they too made a great outward show of godliness, but were really totally fruitless. Presumably from this point on what He really wanted to do was portray a lesson that would later be understood by His disciples.

‘On the next day.’ This links the incident with the previous verse. Such connecting links are rare in Mark demonstrating its importance as a deliberate link.

‘With leaves’ stresses that to outward appearance the tree might be expected to be fruitful. It was making a great show, just as Jerusalem was.

‘He approached to see if perhaps He might find anything on it’ just as He had entered the temple and ‘looked around’ (Mark 11:11) at a scene which demonstrated that Israel produced no fruit. Perhaps He did hope to find on the fig tree some remnant of old figs or of something edible such as the barely edible green knops that come before the actual figs arrive. We must remember that He was used to roughing it. The absence of these would actually indicate the fruitlessness of the tree. Isaiah 28:4 mentions ‘the firstripe fig before the summer, which when he who looks on it sees, he eats it up while it is in his hand’. That may have referred to the same thing. But some claim that fig trees in Palestine have been known, to produce early figs, or that there is a particular type of early fig tree, and that therefore the leafiness may have suggested this as a possibility. Which is true we will never know.

‘He found nothing but leaves for it was not the season for figs.’ This does not necessarily indicate that Jesus was expecting to find figs. It simply explains to the overseas reader why He did not. It was because there was ‘nothing but leaves’. Mark is not concerned to show what Jesus was looking for. He is concerned to bring out the significance of the event, that the outward show did not fulfil its promise. So he explains to the reader that it was without fruit or edible material, just as, on Jesus’ inspection, the Temple, and thus the centre of the Jewish religion, had revealed itself to be. (The last phrase was simply an explanation to Mark’s readers who did not know Palestine).

Jesus probably intended that by His action they would remember His parable of the fig tree (Luke 13:6-9) when a man who had planted a fig tree came looking for fruit on it and found none. At that stage it was to be given another chance to see if it would produce figs. But now it was too late. The fig tree had been given abundant opportunity. Now its probation was over. It had failed to produce figs.