The cursed fig tree: Is withered from the roots
Then he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a pit for the wine press, and built a watchtower; then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the season came, he sent a slave to the tenants to collect from them his share of the produce of the vineyard. But they seized him, and beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. And again he sent another slave to them; this one they beat over the head and insulted. Then he sent another, and that one they killed. And so it was with many others; some they beat, and others they killed.
He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ So they seized him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. What then will the owner of the vineyard do?
He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read this scripture:
‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes’?” Mark 12:1–12
When they realized that he had told this parable against them, they wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowd. So they left him and went away.
We are not confronted with a simple story about an owner of a vineyard. The owner is surely God, and the vineyard is the well-known symbol for Israel and, more narrowly, Jerusalem, the Holy City of the nation Israel (Isaiah 5:1–7, esp. v 7: “For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel.…”). We saw that the Righteous Teacher had a fondness for the imagery of God planting the eternal planting, or everlasting garden. Previously the prophets had developed the image of the vineyard to symbolize Israel (Isaiah. 5; Hosea. 10; Jeremiah. 2; and Ezekiel. 19. These passages are linked by an allegorical poem that employs the image of the vineyard.). God had planted and cultivated the vineyard, Israel.
The parable is not a full-blown allegory. The fact that its main features refer to something else does not warrant a search for the meanings of less-essential features. The owner of the vineyard is God. He is called “Lord” (kyrios). The vineyard is Israel, even Jerusalem.
The ones sent to the vineyard are the prophets and saints of old known from the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible).
The fruits required are, of course, the acts of obedience to the Torah. This motif is well developed in the Dead Sea Scrolls, other texts of Early Judaism, and certainly also in much earlier documents.
James H. Charlesworth, Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls: With Internationally Renowned Experts (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1992), 156–157.
And Peter [calling to remembrance] saith unto him, Master, behold, the [fig tree] which thou cursedst is [withered away.] Mk 11:21 KJV
The Perfect Tense describes an action, or more correctly a process, that took place in the past, the results of which have continued to the present. It has no exact equivalent in English, but is usually translated by using the auxiliary verbs “has” or “have”: “Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole” (Mark 5:34).
Spiros Zodhiates and Warren Baker, The Complete Word Study Bible: King James Version, electronic ed. (Chattanooga: AMG Publishers, 2000).
The fig tree is “withered from the roots.” For a fig tree in full leaf to shrivel so completely within a day is a miracle, and it conveys that the temple’s condemnation is not a temporary measure. It is everlasting.
If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.” Jn. 11:48.
Ah, who are these assembling in the north,invaders from the region of Kittim?
They will lay waste Assyria; they will lay Eber waste:
he too shall perish utterly. Nu. 24:23–24. NEB.
And the factions will need help from the Romans, and they will respond to Assyria and enslave beyond the Euphrates, and indeed they too will perish forever. Nu. 24:23–24. Targum
In a number of Qumran texts the Kittim appear as the last gentile world power to oppress the people of God. In the Habakkuk commentary (from Cave 1 at Qumran) the ‘Chaldeans,’ sent by God to execute his judgment, were understood to be the Kittim.
The author of the scroll believed that Isaiah’s prophecy against Assyria (Isa. 31:8) will be fulfilled after the victory over the Kittim. Many scholars identify the Kittim with the Syrians, but there are others who associate them with the Romans. However, the Kittim in the references in the Qumran commentaries resemble the Romans, even though the evidence is not decisive.
Paul J. Achtemeier, Harper & Row and Society of Biblical Literature, Harper’s Bible Dictionary (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985), 533.
The ruler shall not depart from the house of Judah, nor the scribe from his descendants forever, until the Messiah comes, to whom the kingdom belongs, and to him the peoples shall listen. Targum Onqelos to the Pentateuch Gen. 49:10
How beautiful is the King Messiah who is to arise from the house of Judah! He girds his loins and goes forth and arranges the battle array against his enemies, and kills kings with their rulers.
There is no king or ruler who can stand before him.
He reddens the mountains with the blood of their slain; his garments are steeped in blood, like one who treads the winepress. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to the Pentateuch Gen. 49:10,11
When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?” Mk 13:3–4.
At Jesus’ birth, his identifying sign (sēmeion) was his clothing, the swaddling clothes, the garment of his humiliation, and his position, lying in the manger (Luke 2:12). At his coming again, the identifying (name-)sign of his exaltation will be the Glory-robe in which he is arrayed, his Spirit-clothing, and his position, standing in the heavens. The shepherds were directed to find in the personal condition of the infant Jesus himself, not in something apart from him, his name-sign. So too the inquiring disciples were told that they would know Jesus in his parousia by the glory of his own person, as he comes invested with the name above every name. The parousia-Glory is a self-identifying, self-authenticating signature of God. Meredith G. Kline, Images of the Spirit (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1999), 128–129.
And this shall be a sign for them that they have finished their iniquity [for] I have abandoned the land because they acted haughtily toward Me and because they did not recognize [tha]t [I have rejected them and] they will turn away and do evil. The ev[il] is g[rea]ter than before. [They shall break the covenant which I made] with Abraha[m] and [I]saac and [Jacob. In] those [days] a king shall rise up for the Gentiles, a blasphemer, and he shall commit evil and […] [And in his days I shall remove Israe]l from being a people. [In his days] I shall shatter t[he k]ingdom of [Egypt … Egypt, and I shall cut off Israe]l [and hand her over to the sword …]
Michael O. Wise, Martin G. Abegg Jr., and Edward M. Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation (New York: HarperOne, 2005), 443.
And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” Lk. 19:41–44
As they approached Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, on the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and told them, “Go into the village ahead of you. As soon as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it, and he will send it back here without delay.’ ” They left and found a colt on the street, tied at a door; and they untied it. Some who were standing there asked them, “What are you doing, untying that colt?” The disciples answered them just as Jesus had instructed them, and the men let them go.
They brought the colt to Jesus, threw their garments on it, and Jesus sat on it. Many people spread their garments on the road. Others spread branches that they had cut from the fields. Those who went in front and those who followed were crying out, Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest! Jesus went into the temple courts in Jerusalem and looked around at everything. Since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve. Mark 11:1–11 EHV
“Seeing” in Scripture often means making a judgment (Genesis 1:4, 12, 18, etc.; Psalm 11:4). When the Lord draws near to “see,” He is inspecting the tower and deciding whether or not it will stand.
Peter J. Leithart, A House for My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2000), 59.
When the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonders that he did and the children shouting in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant and said to him, “Do you hear what these children are saying?” Jesus replied, “Yes, have you never read: You have prepared praise from the mouths of infants and nursing babies?” Matthew 21:15–16
And who is David? “The youngest” son of Jesse (1Sm.17:14), despised by his own eldest brother (1Sm.17:28), a “young man” in contrast to Goliath who has been a warrior since he was young (1Sm.17:33). But Yahweh uses “children and infants” to “establish strength”—that is, to make His strength manifest in spite of all these oppressors—and to “silence enemy and avenger.” And in particular, Psalm. 8 says, He uses their mouths.
From their earliest years, the mouths of the children of Yahweh’s people begin to speak in a way that silences the wicked. They may not be able to do much, but they can speak. Instead of asserting themselves and their own strength as Goliath did, cf.1 Sam. 17:8 children praise Yahweh, thereby confessing His strength and relying on it.
We may be inclined to say, “They don’t even understand what they are saying,” but what does that matter? We are not called to critique their speaking, let alone to shush them, but rather to join in their song. As Douglas Wilson has said, “Who shuts down the railing atheist? The answer of this psalm is the jabbering baby in the back of the sanctuary. He is the one who silences the foe and the avenger.”
Too often, though, we admire what we regard as power, the sort of authority that the lords of the Gentiles display (cf. Mark 10:42). But God uses the weak to overcome the strong, the foolish to thwart the wise (1 Cor 1:27–29; cf. Matt 11:25).
So in Matthew 21, children cry out the Name: “Hosanna to the son of David” (Mat.21:15). When the chief priests and scribes want to silence them, Jesus replies by quoting this line of Psalm. 8, deliberately altering the last words, in accordance with the Septuagint, to bring out their meaning: “Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants, you have perfected praise” (Mat.21:16 NKJV). The praise of children—singing the majesty, not simply of Yahweh, but of Jesus—establishes Yahweh’s strength over against oppressive priests and scribes.
But Psalm. 8 applies not only to literal children. In Luke 10:21, the seventy are described as “babies,” who know what the wise do not. Jesus Himself came as a baby and already then began to establish Yahweh’s strength and silence the enemy and avenger, and so His disciples, though just “babies” compared to the wise and mighty, win the victory.
While Matthew 21 points us in the direction of praise, it is worth considering the possibility that the battle in Psalm 8 may be fought by lamentation, as well, that is, that Yahweh overthrows the enemy in response to the cries of His people, including the cries of their little babies.
John Barach, “The Glory of the Son of Man: An Exposition of Psalm 8,” in The Glory of Kings: A Festschrift in Honor of James B. Jordan, ed. Peter J. Leithart and John Barach (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2011), 12.
The material in the passion narrative is oriented around the focal point of the temple, and has been gathered and presented in order to show that Jesus supersedes the temple as the locus Dei. All the material in chaps. Mk. 11–13 is either set in the temple or directly related to it. Like the prophets before him (e.g., 2 Kgs. 22:15–20; 23:26–27; Isa. 51:17–23), Jesus pronounces God’s judgment on Zion.
Jesus is not a reformer of the temple, for neither his teachings nor his ministry institutes a program of change and improvement. He is rather its fulfillment and replacement, for his death on the cross—and not the powerful temple cult—is the perfect atonement for sin. At Golgotha the temple curtain is torn asunder (Mk.15:38) and Jesus is confessed as the Son of God, the object of saving faith (Mk.15:39).
The first six verses of our narrative are devoted to preparation for the entry into Jerusalem and are narrated so as to demonstrate Jesus’ precise foreknowledge and sovereignty over subsequent events. Subtle details in the story carry messianic connotations. The colt is identified in the OT as the mount of the Messiah (Zech. 9:9; Gen 49:11).
Mark is warning against mistaking enthusiasm for faith and popularity for discipleship. Jesus is not confessed in pomp and circumstance but only at the cross (Mk.15:39). The most expressed messianic symbol in Jesus’ entry—the riding on a colt in allusion to the humble Messiah of Zech. 9:9—is either short lived in the minds of the crowd or missed altogether.
Jesus enters the temple alone, and having sized it up, he leaves for Bethany with the disciples. This is the first of Mark’s clues that the temple is not the habitation of God’s Son. Jesus is indeed the Messiah, but he is veiled and unrecognized. Even when he stands at the center of Israel’s faith, he stands alone.
James R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Mark, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: Eerdmans; Apollos, 2002), 333,336,338
“Jesus predicted (or threatened) the destruction of the temple and carried out an action symbolic of its destruction by demonstrating against the performance of the sacrifices. He did not wish to purify the temple, either of dishonest trading or of trading in contrast to ‘pure’ worship. Nor was he opposed to the temple sacrifices which God commanded to Israel.
He intended, rather, to indicate that the end was at hand and that the temple would be destroyed, so that the new and perfect temple might arise.”
James R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Mark, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: Eerdmans; Apollos, 2002).
They came to Jerusalem. Jesus went into the temple area and began to drive out those who were selling and buying in the temple courts. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those who were selling doves. He would not allow anyone to carry any merchandise through the temple courts. He began to teach them: “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers’!” The chief priests and the experts in the law heard this and were looking for a way to kill him. Indeed they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching. When evening came, Jesus and his disciples would leave the city. Mark 11:15–19 EHV
The cleansing of the temple (Mk.11:15–19) is part of the development of Mark’s story towards its climax, and is full of threat for both Jesus and those who are now clearly his opponents. The temple, together with the worship offered in it, represented Jewish life and religion. Following the acted parable of the fig tree there is now the acted parable of God’s judgment on Israel itself.
Donald English, The Message of Mark: The Mystery of Faith, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 190.
The Jewish Passover was near, and so Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling oxen, sheep, and doves, and he also found the money changers sitting there. After making a whip out of cords, he drove everyone out of the temple with their sheep and oxen. He also poured out the money changers’ coins and overturned the tables. He told those who were selling doves, “Get these things out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!”(Lit a house of business), cf. Jer. 7:11; Zech. 14:21; Mal. 3:1–3 Jn 2:13–16. CSB
Wealth is treacherous,and the arrogant are never at rest.
In their greed they have gathered up many nations
and swallowed many peoples.
“But soon their captives will taunt them.
They will mock them, saying,
‘What sorrow awaits you thieves!
Now you will get what you deserve!
You’ve become rich by extortion,
but how much longer can this go on?’ Hab. 2:5–6 NLT
“And indeed, riches betray the arrogant man and he will not last; he who has made his throat as wide as Hades, and who, like Death, is never satisfied. All the Gentiles will flock to him, and all the peoples will gather to him. Look, all of them take up a taunt against him, and invent sayings about him, saying, ‘Ho, one who grows large on what is not his, how long will he burden himself down with debts?’ ” (Hab.2:5–6).
This refers to the Wicked Priest, who had a reputation for reliability at the beginning of his term of service; but when he became ruler over Israel, he became proud and forsook God and betrayed the commandments for the sake of riches. He amassed by force the riches of the lawless who had rebelled against God, seizing the riches of the peoples, thus adding to the guilt of his crimes, and he committed abhorrent deeds in every defiling impurity.
Michael O. Wise, Martin G. Abegg Jr., and Edward M. Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation (New York: HarperOne, 2005), 85.
The quotation from Jer. 7:11 attributed to Jesus in Mk.11:17 does not refer in its original context to commercial transactions in the temple. The people are there described as ‘robbers’ or ‘brigands’ because their behavior outside the temple means that when they enter the temple they cannot worship God sincerely: they rob God in the temple as surely as they have robbed the poor outside.
The evangelists, however, see Jesus’ actions as much more than a mere gesture of protest: they are to be understood as prophetic actions, symbolizing a divine judgement which will be worked out in future events. John interprets the incident as both a sign of the coming cessation of Jewish worship, and a symbol of the way in which Jesus himself fulfilled the functions once served by the temple. Mark, by embedding the incident in the story of the fig tree, shows clearly that he interprets it as a sign of God’s condemnation of Israel because of her failure to bear fruit. This suggests that he sees it as a symbol of the future destruction of the temple and the final cessation of worship.
Whatever its origin, the inclusion of the saying at this point suggests that Mark is now interpreting it of the temple mount. In contrast to Jewish expectation that at the Last Day ‘the mountain of the house of the Lord’ would be exalted and ‘established as the highest of the mountains’ (Mic. 4:1), Jesus now pronounces judgement on it and declares that it will be submerged in the sea. The sea was the place of destruction (cf. Mk. 5:13; 9:42).
Morna D. Hooker, The Gospel according to Saint Mark, Black’s New Testament Commentary (London: Continuum, 1991), 264,265,270
“For the crimes perpetrated against Lebanon he will bury you, for the robbery of beasts, he will smite you; because of murder and injustice in the land, he will destroy the city and all who live in it”.
The passage refers to the Wicked Priest, that he will be paid back for what he did to the poor, for “Lebanon” refers to the party of the Yahad, and “beasts” refers to the simple-hearted of Judah who obey the Law. God will condemn him to utter destruction, just as he planned to destroy the poor.
As for the verse that says, “because of murder in the city and injustice in the land,” “the city” refers to Jerusalem, where the Wicked Priest committed his abhorrent deeds, defiling the Temple of God. “Injustice in the land” refers to the cities of Judah where he stole the assets of the poor.
Michael O. Wise, Martin G. Abegg Jr., and Edward M. Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation (New York: HarperOne, 2005), 87–88.
The second creation story also develops the theme of stewardship; in it God appoints his stewards to work in and tend God’s special garden, the pleasant place of God’s walking (Gen.2:15). Stewards are to care for that over which they have dominion. Here we find a third assigned function, in which the Genesis narrator gives us, in part, essential ingredients to begin to construct the requisite ethic of ruling. Rape and pillage of the earth are not justified; no selfish abuse is sanctioned. Stewards are servants who, in being commanded to serve, benefit that over which they rule. Good kings bring prosperity to their people (Ps. 72); good shepherds take care of, protect, strengthen, bind up, and recover the sheep (Ez. 34).
“Stewardship is … dominion as service”
In what are termed David’s last words, David saw the establishment of justice as an essential part of a kingship that ruled in “the fear of God” (2 Sam. 23:3). This echoes the Prologue to the Code of Hammurabi: ‘At that time Anums and Enlil named me to promote the welfare of the people, me, Hammurabi, the devout, God-fearing prince, to cause justice to prevail in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil, that the strong might not oppress the weak.… (Bulletin for Biblical Research, Vol. 13, 2003.64)
The Augustan Age and the Principate are frequently thought to have ushered in an era of peace and prosperity. It is true that Augustus brought to a conclusion the disastrous and disruptive civil strife (especially in the eastern provinces) of the late Republic. The Pax Augusta also encouraged commerce.
Yet many citizens and subjects of the early Empire did not share in this prosperity and commerce. This is a social fact that must not be forgotten. The Herodian period in Palestine is illustrative of this fact. Herod the Great, by any standard, was a brutal dictator who established a police state, bled his subjects nearly to death through taxation, and established monuments to a prosperity shared only by the wealthy and powerful. (Herod’s building programs are well known, especially the expansion of the Temple complex that began in 20 BCE.)
It is [the temple] episode which makes the seemingly senseless act of cursing the fig tree intelligible, while at the same time its far-reaching significance is obviated by it. The two incidents are interdependent.… Like the fig tree, the temple is intended to serve the needs of human beings. But while a fig tree can produce fruit only in its season, the temple as an institution that mediates divine-human relationships cannot be, indeed must not be, regulated by the cycles of nature.… The cursing of the fig tree symbolizes the condemnation of the temple institution which, as the central systemic structure of Judaism, has been regulating the religious, political, economic, and social life of the Jewish people.
Douglas E. Oakman, “Cursing Fig Trees and Robbers’ Dens Pronouncement Stories Within Social-Systemic Perspective Mark 11:12–25 and Parallels,” ed. Daniel Patte, Semeia 64 (1993): 258,267.
The parable of the sprouting fig-tree by which one knows that summer is at hand (Mk. 13:28 f. par. Mt. 24:32 f.; Lk. 21:29–31) stands at the end of the Synoptic Apocalypse and is related to the signs of the end, i.e., the future signs of an event which is to be expected in the even more distant future. This might suggest a later stage of Christian apocalyptic and a certain tension with sayings like Lk. 17:20. If like Lk. 12:54–56 its original reference is to present signs, to the signs of the βασιλεία-kingdom given in Jesus’ works rather than to apocalyptic events, to signs which thus guarantee the speedy coming of the βασιλεία, the saying becomes one of the clearest testimonies to immediate and urgent expectation of Jesus. Mk. 13:28, 29 par., Lk. 21:31
So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.
Claus-Hunno Hunzinger, “Συκῆ, Σῦκον, Ὄλυνθος, Συκάμινος, Συκομορέα, Συκοφαντέω,” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, and Gerhard Friedrich (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964–), 757.
In the Gospels, the temple is signified by a fig tree. Jesus enters the temple looking for the fruit of obedience, but finds instead a den of thieves. Jesus then comes to a fig tree looking for fruit and finds only leaves (Mk 11:12–14). The fig tree in Revelation. 6 is Israel and Israel’s temple, an Israel that has produced figs but figs that are not yet full grown. These figs are not ready for God or man, and when the “great wind” of Pentecost comes, even the unripe fruit that the tree has born will be shaken off.
Peter J. Leithart, Revelation, ed. Michael Allen and Scott R. Swain, vol. 1, The International Theological Commentary on the Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testaments (London; Oxford; New York; New Delhi; Sydney: Bloomsbury; Bloomsbury T&T Clark: An Imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2018), 313–314.
Mark clearly states that figs were out of season. Some try to soften this story by claiming that Jesus expected to find first fruits on the tree, the few figs that would have appeared in advance of the full crop which would come later (Gundry 1993:636). While the story might be read in that way, the unqualified statement because it was not the season for figs cannot be reconciled with this line of interpretation. The plain implication of this simple statement is that there was nothing wrong with the fig tree. The fig tree, then, is a sign or symbol of something else, and Mark’s intercalation points to the temple.
Ronald J. Kernaghan, Mark, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007), 216.
This detail is a clue for the reader to look beyond the surface meaning and to see its symbolic meaning cf. Mk.13:28–32. This action is not about a particular unfruitful fig tree; it has to do with the temple. The word “season” (kairos) is not the botanical term for the growing season but the religious term found in Mk.1:14–15 denoting the time of the kingdom of God. Moreover, the tenants do not produce the fruits of the vineyard “at harvest time” (Mk.12:2; lit., “in season”). The barren fig tree represents the barrenness of temple Judaism that is unprepared to accept Jesus’ messianic reign.
And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it. Mk.11:14
When Jesus and his disciples pass by the tree on the next day, they confirm the effectiveness of the curse. The fig tree is “withered from the roots.” For a fig tree in full leaf to shrivel so completely within a day is a miracle, and it conveys that the temple’s condemnation is not a temporary measure. It is everlasting. This event also contrasts the sterility of temple Judaism with the authority and power of Jesus. Jesus is said to “answer” the tree (NIV, “he said,” Mk. 11:14 NIV). What he answers is the tree’s false advertising with leaves that hide its fruitlessness. The tree gives the impression that it might have something to eat, just as the temple gives the impression that it is a place dedicated to the service of God.
The temple profits only the priestly hierarchy; it profits nothing for God.
David E. Garland, Mark, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996), 440.
The generation that rejects Jesus must be the last before the great cataclysm. There can be no other, because if there were they would need another warning prophet; once the father has sent the son to the vineyard, he can send nobody else. To reject the son is to reject the last chance.
N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, Christian Origins and the Question of God (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1996), 365.
In the morning as they passed by, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. Then Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.” Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and if you do not doubt in your heart but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. “Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.” Mk. 11:20–25
The verb remember becomes an important term from this point on in Mark’s Gospel. Throughout the passion story Jesus’ disciples witness events whose meaning is much larger than they could comprehend at the moment. Their meaning becomes apparent only in retrospect. So it was with the fig tree. They had heard Jesus’ words in Mark 11:14, but they had not expected the fig tree to wither overnight. It would also be so with the temple. They had seen what he had done in the temple, but their reverence for the temple was so entrenched (Mk.13:1) that they did not perceive what it meant.
Jesus said to them, “Watch out, and beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”... How could you fail to perceive that I was not speaking about bread? Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees!” Then they understood that he had not told them to beware of the yeast of bread but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Mat. 16:6,11–12
In cursing the temple, Jesus had not doubted in his heart. He had absolute confidence that what he had said would be done for him. And if we ask what the basis for his confidence was, it is to be found in the opening clause of Mark.11:22: Have faith in God.
His certainty was grounded in God’s integrity and justice. Jesus had not cursed the temple on a whim. It was his conviction that Herod’s Temple stood in the way of God’s purposes, just as Solomon’s Temple had become a sanctuary for robbers centuries before. As the rule of God drew near in history, the temple could no longer stand—not only because it opposed him, a theme that is developed comprehensively through the rest of the passion story, but because it stood against the reign of God.
Ronald J. Kernaghan, Mark, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007), 219–220.
In our immediate passage, when Jesus imagines the disciples praying that “this mountain” be thrown into the sea (Mk.11:23), he is issuing a warrant to pray against the Mount-Zion-based temple elite who would—as history would confirm—soon be hounding his followers for decades to come. In contrast to the Psalms of Solomon, which calls for divine protection and retribution against the community’s enemies, Mark’s Jesus calls for forgiveness and the removal of the temple. But both the evangelist and the psalmist agree on this:
the persecuted, righteous remnant must pray in order that God’s eschatological purposes might be realized.
One man from among you can make a thousand flee, for it is the LORD your God who wages war for you, as He told you. cp. Lev. 26:8; Dt. 3:22 MEV. Jos. 23:10.
Nicholas Perrin, “Psalms of Solomon and Mark 11:12–25: The Great Priestly Showdown at the Temple,” in Reading Mark in Context: Jesus and Second Temple Judaism, ed. Ben C. Blackwell, John K. Goodrich, and Jason Maston (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2018), 186.
We may suppose that thanksgiving dominated the life and the prayer life of Jesus. The tradition maintains this (John 11:41).There is a saying in Rabbinic literature: ‘In the world to come, all sacrifice will cease, but the sacrifice of thanksgiving will remain for ever; equally, all confessions will cease, but the confession of thanksgiving will remain for ever.’ Cf. Heb. 13:9–16: after the offering of the one sacrifice on the cross (Heb.13:10), there remains only the sacrifice of thanksgiving (Heb. 13:15) and the offering of grateful love (Heb.13:16). Thus the predominance of thanksgiving in the prayers of Jesus is an anticipation of the consummation; it is actualized eschatology.
‘You cannot come before God with an offering, i.e. with a request for forgiveness,’ says Jesus, ‘if your brother has any complaint against you.’
The way to God goes through a man’s neighbor.
Forgiveness—one’s own readiness to forgive and a request for forgiveness where one has committed an offence—is the presupposition for the prayer of Jesus’ disciples.
Joachim Jeremias, New Testament Theology, trans. John Bowden (London: SCM Press Ltd, 1971), 191,193.
I know that judgement of all the living is in His hand,and that all His deeds are truth.
I will praise Him when distress is unleashed
and will magnify Him also because of His salvation.
Geza Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, Revised and extended 4th ed. (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 85.
To no man shall I return evil for evil, I shall pursue a man only for good; for with God resides the judgment of all the living, and He shall pay each man his recompense. My zeal shall not be tarnished by a spirit of wickedness, neither shall I lust for riches gained through violence.
The multitude of evil men I shall not capture until the Day of Vengeance; yet my fury shall not abate from Men of the Pit, and I shall never be appeased until righteousness be established.
I shall hold no angry grudge against those repenting of sin yet neither shall I love any who rebel against the Way; the smitten I shall not comfort until their walk be perfected. I shall give no refuge in my heart to Belial.
Michael O. Wise, Martin G. Abegg Jr., and Edward M. Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation (New York: HarperOne, 2005), 133.
Relationship with God is based simply on faith and forgiveness. If one can unleash God’s power by faith and find forgiveness through prayer and a forgiving spirit, the temple cultus has been bypassed, and a house of prayer that has become a den of brigands has no more use than a dead fig tree. God’s power will become available to those, including Gentiles, who have faith that it can be unleashed apart from the temple. The temple with its priesthood, sacrifices, and taxes is no longer the place of God’s presence, where one meets God and where sins are forgiven. By the time Mark writes, the temple is either besieged or already destroyed. He wants to convey to his readers that broken altars do not prejudice atonement with God.
David E. Garland, Mark, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996), 442.
The land is holy only because the God of holiness has given it to his people. There is nothing intrinsically sacrosanct about this land any more than there is about the city of Jerusalem or the temple. If God departs, the sanctity leaves too.
Victor P. Hamilton, “167 אֶרֶץ,” in Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, ed. R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer Jr., and Bruce K. Waltke (Chicago: Moody Press, 1999), 75.
If the temple in Jerusalem was not immune to judgment, then neither is any other enclave of power. God can be trusted to judge impartially. The promise of Mk.11:24 is not a blank check that Jesus’ followers could draw upon to fulfill their own aspirations. It is an instruction about how they are to confront the centers of power that oppose the kingdom of God.
The word whatever, then, should be taken in the sense of no matter how formidable, rather than in the sense of anything and everything.
The promises of Mk.11:23–24 are based on God’s commitment to act with justice through the events of history. Overturning the tables of the moneychangers and merchants in the temple was not a call to violence or armed revolt. There is no evidence that Jesus bore arms or encouraged his followers to do so. Shutting down the system of sacrifice was an enacted prophecy that God would act to redress an abuse of power.
In the verses that follow that act, Jesus gave his disciples instructions about how to deal with entrenched, unyielding opposition to the rule of God. This intransigence was not merely the unfaithfulness of a few people: it was institutional opposition. Throughout the Gospel of Mark Jesus confronts individual people, spiritual powers and human institutions with the claims of the kingdom of God.
As he began his ministry in Jerusalem, Jesus encountered not only the disobedience of the high priests and scribes, he also confronted the temple as a system of worship that was robbing God. In the final analysis Jesus’ teaching about prayer outlines a strategy for pressing the claims of the rule of God against unresponsive enclaves of power. He did not encourage his followers to take up arms. He encouraged them to pray with the enduring faith that trusts God to act in and through the events of history.
This reading fits well with the theology of the broader passage. If the nations of the world are to have a place where they pray with the people of Israel, then forgiveness of the wrongs that one people suffer at the hands of another is essential. If forgiveness is not part of the prayers of the nations, then their prayers might easily become a hopeless litany of revenge.
Finally, Jesus’ use of the word father at the end of Mk.11:25 should not be overlooked. This is the first time in the Gospel of Mark that God is described in this way. Jesus has been described as God’s “son” in Mk.1:11 and Mk.9:7, but heretofore no one has referred to God as father. One of the major themes in the previous sections of the Gospel is the creation of a new family (Mk.3:31–35), in which the will of God is the defining factor. The reference to God as father here is entirely consistent with that passage. We might wonder then why we have not seen it before or why it appears here. The best answer is that in this passage the will of God is startlingly and clearly revealed.
Against the backdrop of nationalistic dreams and all the roiling patriotic fervor, forgiveness and reconciliation are revealed to lie at the very center of God’s will.
Ronald J. Kernaghan, Mark, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007), 220;221,222-223
It is easily conceivable that Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom could turn out to be in rivalry with the temple service. To cling to the traditional sacrificial cult as the basis of atonement and salvation, ignoring or rejecting God’s call in the ministry of Jesus, is deceptive. On this background, Jesus’ attack on services and functions of the temple market vital to a smoothly functioning incessant sacrificial cult appears as a dramatic call to the priestly authorities in particular to wake up and realize that God is about to bring his kingdom through the work of his messenger Jesus of Nazareth.
To cling stubbornly to the sacrificial cult and seek security in its atoning effect at this hour of eschatological fulfillment brought by Jesus in messianic authority is as deceptive as the schizophrenic conduct of Jeremiah’s contemporaries.
Also with this outcome of Jesus’ provocative demonstration there is a positive message inherent in the symbolic temple act.
The outdated cultic system will be replaced also in spite of a rejection of Jesus.
Paradoxically, in his violent death Jesus becomes the ransom (Mk. 10:45), and his body is given and his blood is poured out for many as the definite atonement sacrifice (Mk. 14:22, 24).
J. Ådna, “Temple Act,” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, Second Edition, ed. Joel B. Green, Jeannine K. Brown, and Nicholas Perrin (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013), 950,951.
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