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NASB | Matthew 21:19 Seeing a lone fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it except leaves only; and He *said to it, "No longer shall there ever be any fruit from you." And at once the fig tree withered. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Matthew 21:19 Seeing a lone fig tree at the roadside, He went to it and found nothing but leaves on it; and He said to it, "Never again will fruit come from you." And at once the fig tree withered. |
Subject: Why did Jesus curse the fig tree? |
Bible Note: Nolan, I hadn't thought of that, approximately, and it sounds like a solid answer. Yet isn't it jarring how Jesus follows this act with... "Truly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, 'Be taken up and cast into the sea,' it will happen. And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive." (Mat 21:21-22)? The Treasury of Scriptural Knowledge ties many fig/fruit references to this event, but could Jesus' follow-up preaching on faith and prayer, His stressing of their combined power, be about the disciples' future power rather than Israel's future condemnation? Could the fig tree be less a symbolic death of the faithless letter than the ultimate defeat of death itself? The tree has aparrent life but its fruit is seasonal: you cannot always feed on it when you are hungry, neither literally nor spiritually. The tree, therefore, represents the death that abides in us until we are reborn in Christ, the true vine from whom we are to bear much fruit, both in and out of season (2 Tim 4.2). For the disciples, who can't possibly foresee their own future power in Christ to give life (literally and spritually), this event is a foretelling of what power they will possess to wither the power of death. Can this interpretation hold in context? Colin |