The Fallible Study Bible

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Mark11:12–14

Jesus Curses the Fig Tree

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Mark 11:12–14 — Jesus Curses the Fig Tree. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.

12

The next day, when they had left Bethany, Jesus was hungry.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

Kai tē epaurion autōn exelthontōn apo Bēthanias epeinasen

Word by word8 · parsed
ΚαὶKaiG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
Mark's running καί, the paratactic hinge that keeps this narrative breathless.
τῇtēTheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleDative Feminine Singular
ἐπαύριονepaurionnext dayG1887
√ ἐπαύριον — occurring on the succeeding day, iAdverb
epaurion: occurring on the succeeding day The only chronological marker in the pericope, and the reason the commentators can date the act. Ellicott sends the reader to Matthew 21:18-19 for "the chronological difficulty," since Matthew compresses the two days Mark keeps apart.
αὐτῶνautōn[when] theyG846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounGenitive Masculine 3rd Person Plural
ἐξελθόντωνexelthontōnhad leftG1831
√ ἐξέρχομαι — to issue (literally or figuratively)VerbAorist Participle ActiveGenitive Masculine Plural
exerchomai: to issue, go out Aorist participle in a genitive absolute. The Verifier links this word and Bethany back to Mark 11:11, where he went out (ἐξῆλθεν) to Bethany after looking round on all things in the temple: the going out and the coming back frame the inspection that the fig tree now dramatizes.
ἀπὸapo. . .G575
√ ἀπό — "off," iPreposition
ΒηθανίαςBēthaniasBethanyG963
√ Βηθανία — date-houseNounGenitive Feminine Singular
ἐπείνασενepeinasen[Jesus] was hungryG3983
√ πεινάω — "pine")VerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
peinaō: to hunger, to pine The hinge of the whole sign, and the commentators refuse to make it merely theatrical. JFB insists it was real bodily hunger, against "some early heretics"; Cambridge, quoting Bp Wordsworth, reads it as the Humanity shown "when about to give a proof of His Deity"; Maclaren presses further and grants a real expectation afterward disappointed. The one who will hunger here is the one who in Mark 1:13 was in the wilderness and in Mark 14:36 asks that the cup pass: Mark's Jesus is hungry before he is judge.
13

Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, He went to see if there was any fruit on it. But when He reached it, He found nothing on it except leaves, since it was not the season for figs.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

kai idōn apo makrothen sykēn echousan phylla ēlthen heurēsei ei ara ti en autē kai elthōn ep’ autēn heuren ouden ei mē phylla gar ēn ouk ho kairos sykōn

Word by word29 · parsed
καὶkaiG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ἰδὼνidōnSeeingG3708
√ ὁράω — by extension, to attend toVerbAorist Participle ActiveNominative Masculine Singular
horaō: to see, and by extension to attend to The lexicon's "by extension, to attend to" is exactly the force here: this is not a glance but an inspection. Mark 11:11 used a different verb (περιβλεψάμενος, he looked round about) for the survey of the temple courts, which Barnes glosses "Having seen or examined everything"; the shared thing is the act, not the word. Mark's Jesus arrives, looks, and then acts on what he sees.
ἀπὸapoinG575
√ ἀπό — "off," iPreposition
μακρόθενmakrothenthe distanceG3113
√ μακρόθεν — from a distance or afarAdverb
συκῆνsykēna fig treeG4808
√ συκῆ — a fig-treeNounAccusative Feminine Singular
sykē: a fig tree A relatively rare noun (15 verses). It is the tree of Israel's promised security, every man under his own vine and fig tree (1 Kings 4:25; Micah 4:4), and the tree the prophets use when that security fails (Jeremiah 8:13; Hosea 9:10; Joel 1:7). Mark uses συκῆ again at 13:28, where the fig tree's leaves are a sign of nearness rather than of fraud.
ἔχουσανechousaninG2192
√ ἔχω — to hold (used in very various applications, literally or figuratively, direct or remoteVerbPresent Participle ActiveAccusative Feminine Singular
φύλλαphyllaleafG5444
√ φύλλον — a sprout, iNounAccusative Neuter Plural
phyllon: a sprout, a leaf Rare in the NT (5 verses), and every use is loaded. Here the leaves are the advertisement; at Mark 13:28 they announce that summer is near; at Revelation 22:2 the leaves of the tree of life are for healing. Cambridge reports that the foliage was "an unusual show of leaves for the season," and Pulpit that the tree, standing alone in full sun, was more forward than its neighbors.
ἦλθενēlthenHe wentG2064
√ ἔρχομαι — to come or go (in a great variety of applications, literally and figuratively)VerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
εὑρήσειheurēseito seeG2147
√ εὑρίσκω — to find (literally or figuratively)VerbFuture Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
εἰeiifG1487
√ εἰ — if, whether, that, etcConjunction
ἄραarathere wasG687
√ ἆρα — thereforeConjunction
The particle ἆρα (G687, only 4 verses) carries a leaning expectation, "if then, as one might reasonably suppose"; Cambridge renders "if therefore."
τιtiany [fruit]G5100
√ τὶς — some or any person or objectInterrogative / Indefinite PronounAccusative Neuter Singular
ἐνenonG1722
√ ἐν — "in," at, (up-)on, by, etcPreposition
αὐτῇautēitG846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounDative Feminine 3rd Person Singular
καὶkaiBut whenG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ἐλθὼνelthōnHe reachedG2064
√ ἔρχομαι — to come or go (in a great variety of applications, literally and figuratively)VerbAorist Participle ActiveNominative Masculine Singular
ἐπ’ep’. . .G1909
√ ἐπί — properly, meaning superimposition (of time, place, order, etcPreposition
αὐτὴνautēnitG846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounAccusative Feminine 3rd Person Singular
εὗρενheurenHe foundG2147
√ εὑρίσκω — to find (literally or figuratively)VerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
οὐδὲνoudennothing [on it]G3762
√ οὐδείς — not even one (man, woman or thing), iAdjectiveAccusative Neuter Singular
oudeis: not even one Total negation, and the sentence's whole weight falls here: the tree's fault is not scarcity but the gap between promise and nothing. The same pronoun carries the vine discourse of John 15:5, where apart from Christ a branch can do οὐδέν, nothing at all. Mark's sequence is the reverse side of that: a branch that produced nothing while looking as though it could.
εἰeiexceptG1487
√ εἰ — if, whether, that, etcConjunction
μὴmē. . .G3361
√ μή — (adverb) not, (conjunction) lestAdverb
φύλλαphyllaleavesG5444
√ φύλλον — a sprout, iNounAccusative Neuter Plural
γὰρgarsinceG1063
√ γάρ — properly, assigning a reason (used in argument, explanation or intensificationConjunction
The γάρ (G1063) is the interpretive crux of the verse; Benson would read the clause as a parenthesis explaining why Jesus expected fruit, Ellicott and JFB as a plain note that no fruit was due.
ἦνēnit wasG1510
√ εἰμί — I exist (used only when emphatic)VerbImperfect Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
οὐκouknotG3756
√ οὐ — the absolute negative (compare G3361 (μή)) adverbAdverb
ὁhotheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Masculine Singular
καιρὸςkairosseasonG2540
√ καιρός — an occasion, iNounNominative Masculine Singular
kairos: an occasion, an appointed season The same word stands in Jesus' opening proclamation at Mark 1:15, where the kairos is declared fulfilled and the kingdom near, and in the parable of the vineyard owner who sends for fruit at the season (Mark 12:2, in this very unit's chapter). Here the narrator says the kairos for figs had not come, and the reader is left to feel that another kairos, the one for Israel's fruit, had.
σύκωνsykōnfor figsG4810
√ σῦκον — a figNounGenitive Neuter Plural
14

Then He said to the tree, “May no one ever eat of your fruit again.” And His disciples heard this statement.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

kai apokritheis eipen autē mēdeis Mēketi eis ton aiōna phagoi ek sou karpon kai autou hoi mathētai ēkouon

Word by word18 · parsed
καὶkaiThenG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ἀποκριθεὶςapokritheisvvvG611
√ ἀποκρίνομαι — to conclude for oneself, iVerbAorist Participle PassiveNominative Masculine Singular
apokrinomai: to conclude for oneself, to answer A Semitic narrative idiom, as Gill says, but not therefore empty: the participle treats the tree as having made a statement. Bengel's "to the tree that denied fruit" (cited by Cambridge) is the grammar's own logic. Note the passive form with active sense, standard for this verb in the aorist.
εἶπενeipenHe saidG2036
√ ἔπω — to speak or say (by word or writing)VerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
αὐτῇautēto [the tree]G846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounDative Feminine 3rd Person Singular
The dative αὐτῇ is feminine, agreeing with συκῆν: he speaks to the tree, not about it.
μηδεὶςmēdeis{May} no oneG3367
√ μηδείς — not even one (man, woman, thing)AdjectiveNominative Masculine Singular
ΜηκέτιMēketieverG3371
√ μηκέτι — no furtherAdverb
mēketi: no further, no longer The capital in the printed text marks where the spoken words begin. Compounded from μή and ἔτι, it forbids continuation rather than existence: not "you never had fruit" but "no further fruit from you."
εἰςeis. . .G1519
√ εἰς — to or into (indicating the point reached or entered), of place, time, or (figuratively) purpose (result, etcPreposition
τὸνton. . .G3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Masculine Singular
αἰῶναaiōna. . .G165
√ αἰών — properly, an ageNounAccusative Masculine Singular
aiōn: properly, an age Pulpit's whole merciful reading hangs on this noun's primary sense, and the lexicon supports that it properly means an age rather than sheer endlessness. Honesty requires saying that the idiom εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα is regularly used in the NT for unbounded duration, so the limit Pulpit finds is a possible sense, not a demonstrated one.
φάγοιphagoieatG5315
√ φάγω — to eat (literally or figuratively)VerbAorist Optative Active3rd Person Singular
phagō: to eat Aorist optative: a wish, and in effect a curse. The verb ties the sign back to the hunger of v. 12, which is the reason he came: no one will eat from this tree, beginning with him.
ἐκekofG1537
√ ἐκ — literal or figurativePreposition
σοῦsouyourG4771
√ σύ — thouPersonal / Possessive PronounGenitive 2nd Person Singular
καρπὸνkarponfruit {again}G2590
√ καρπός — fruit (as plucked), literally or figurativelyNounAccusative Masculine Singular
karpos: fruit as plucked The word the rest of this unit's chapters will hammer. In Mark 12:2 the vineyard owner sends a servant to receive of the fruit of the vineyard, and the tenants beat him; the fig tree of 11:14 and the vineyard of 12:1-9 are the same indictment told twice, once in a tree and once in a story.
καὶkaiAndG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
αὐτοῦautouHisG846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounGenitive Masculine 3rd Person Singular
οἱhoiG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Masculine Plural
μαθηταὶmathētaidisciplesG3101
√ μαθητής — a learner, iNounNominative Masculine Plural
ἤκουονēkouonheard [this statement]G191
√ ἀκούω — to hear (in various senses)VerbImperfect Indicative Active3rd Person Plural
akouō: to hear Imperfect, and deliberately so. In Mark, hearing is the test: the call to hear closes the parable of the sower at Mark 4:9 and the whole seed discourse turns on how a hearer receives. The disciples were hearing; whether they understood waits until Mark 11:20-21, when Peter sees the tree withered from the roots and can only report the fact.

The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.

⚙

Grand Commentary — the unit, read whole

synthesis · verify

AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.

i. The hunger that begins the judgment — Mark 11:12

Mark dates this by a single adverb, τῇ ἐπαύριον, and the commentators fill the date in: JFB reckons it the Monday after the triumphal entry, Pulpit the 11th of Nisan. What the Greek insists on is smaller and stranger than the date. A genitive absolute puts a whole company on the road out of Bethany, and then one aorist verb, ἐπείνασεν, lands on one man: he became hungry. Every source in this brief refuses to let that hunger be decorative. JFB says flatly that it was real bodily hunger and that to make it a staged lesson is what "some early heretics maintained." Cambridge, citing Bp Wordsworth, reads the hunger as the Humanity shown just before a proof of the Deity. Pulpit infers from it that he had not slept at the house of Martha and Mary but had been out in the open, fasting and praying. Maclaren goes furthest and grants a real expectation, really disappointed: "the hunger and the expectancy and the disappointment were all real." ⚙ That is the order Mark chooses, and it is worth noticing: before the Lord of the temple inspects the temple, he is a hungry man on a road who wants breakfast.

ii. Leaves at a distance, nothing up close — Mark 11:13

The seeing is Mark's own detail; Ellicott notes that "afar off" is "a touch peculiar to St. Mark" and makes the hunger keener than Matthew's telling. The premise on which the whole scene turns is horticultural, and Benson states it: the fig "puts forth its fruit first, and its leaves afterward, so that it was natural to suppose, as it had leaves, it would also have fruit upon it." JFB says the same, that leaves promise fruit "which in the case of figs come before the leaves." Cambridge adds that this tree stood alone with "an unusual show of leaves for the season," and Pulpit reasons that because it was seen from afar it must have had the full benefit of the sun, so that it ran ahead of its neighbors (Pulpit's citation of Dean Stanley is for a different point, that Mount Olivet is still sprinkled with fig trees). So the tree was not merely empty; it was advertising. Geneva's marginal gloss names the target in one line: "An example of that vengeance which hangs over the heads of hypocrites." Pulpit puts it as an epigram, that the tree "was cursed, not for being barren, but for being false." Cambridge calls it "the very type of a fair profession without performance." The one hard exegetical dispute is the last clause, οὐ γὰρ ἦν καιρὸς σύκων. Benson, with Dr Campbell behind him, reads καιρός as the fig harvest and makes the clause a parenthesis explaining why Jesus could expect undisturbed fruit; Ellicott takes "the words in their more natural sequence," that even the earliest fruit was not yet due; JFB admits outright that "interpreters are not agreed," and Gill lists three possible senses without choosing. ⚙ The Greek does not settle it, and this synthesis will not pretend otherwise.

iii. Answering a tree — Mark 11:14

The verse opens with a participle that should not fit: ἀποκριθεὶς, answering, when nothing has spoken. Gill calls it "a Jewish way of speaking, often used when nothing before is said," and notes that the Syriac, Arabic and Persic drop the word. Cambridge, quoting Bengel, supplies the silent speaker, "arbori fructum neganti," the tree that refused fruit. ⚙ Take the idiom at face value and the grammar says what Pulpit and Geneva say by other means: the leaves had made a claim, and this is the reply. Then the rarest form in the unit, φάγοι, an aorist optative of wish, almost extinct in the New Testament, so that what follows is not forecast but imprecation. JFB draws the right line under it: "That word did not make the tree barren, but sealed it up in its own barrenness." Henry keeps the sign aimed where Mark aims it, "not to the trees, but to the men of that generation," and Gill widens it to "any outward professor of religion" who talks of good works and does none. Over the phrase εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα Pulpit builds his mercy: literally "for the age," a limitation, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled, after which Israel, which now says "I am a dry tree," will be clothed with fruit. ⚙ That is a real possible sense of an ambiguous idiom, not a proof; it should be held as hope, not as demonstration. Mark ends not with the withering (Matthew reports that it was immediate; Cambridge and Pulpit note the disciples did not see it until the next morning) but with an imperfect verb: ἤκουον, they kept hearing. In this Gospel that is never a neutral note.

Read under Sola Scriptura — this tool’s own fallible reading (⚙)

⚙ Offered to be tested, not as settled doctrine. Mark has bolted this sign onto the temple visit on either side of it, and the joints are visible: in 11:11 he goes into the temple, looks round upon all things, and leaves without acting; in 11:12-14 he inspects a tree that promised and did not deliver, and speaks; in 11:15-17 he returns and clears the courts of a house that had become a place of trade while still called a house of prayer. Three inspections, one verdict. The charge in every case is not emptiness but false advertising: leaves without figs, a temple full of traffic and still bearing God's name on the door. That is why Pulpit's line lands, that the tree was cursed not for being barren but for being false, and why Geneva reaches for hypocrisy rather than for failure. ⚙ Two further things this reading wants to hold together, and finds hard. First, the hunger is real, and the sources say so in one voice; the sign does not begin as theology but as an appetite, and the Lord who will be given vinegar on the cross is here refused breakfast by a tree. Second, the judgment is spoken, not executed by force: an optative, a wish, and the tree simply continues to be what it already was. JFB's formulation seems to me the most exact thing in the brief, that the word sealed the tree up in its own barrenness. If that is right, then the terror of this passage is not that Christ destroys, but that he can ratify what we already are, and that the ratifying takes only a sentence said in passing while the disciples happen to be listening. What follows in Mark 12:1-9, the vineyard let out to tenants who will not give up the fruit at the season, tells the same indictment again in words. The tree was the trailer.

The tree was not condemned for having no fruit; it was condemned for wearing leaves that said it did.

⚙

Canonical Threads — out to the whole of Scripture

cross-refs · verify

AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.

The synoptic parallel: Matthew's one fig tree verbal / quotation: confirmed

Matthew 21:19 tells the same act and is the passage to which Barnes, Ellicott and Benson all simply refer the reader ("See this passage explained in the notes at Matthew 21:18-22"). The Verifier records the shared vocabulary. Two differences matter and are reported by the sources rather than invented here: Matthew has μίαν συκῆν, "one fig tree" (so Pulpit and Cambridge, who note it stood alone by the wayside), and Matthew says the tree withered "immediately," while Mark holds the withering back until 11:20. Cambridge reconciles them by observing that the disciples "did not notice it till the following morning." Ellicott flags the resulting chronological difficulty rather than solving it.

Matthew 21:19

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexemes G4808 συκῆ (in 15 vv), G2147 εὑρίσκω (in 167 vv), G3762 οὐδείς (in 221 vv); συκῆ is the low frequency lexeme, and the two passages are the same pericope in two Gospels, so the verbal link is a synoptic parallel, not a quotation of one by the other

Mark's other fig tree: leaves as the sign of nearness verbal / quotation: confirmed

Mark uses συκῆ only twice, here and at Mark 13:28, and the pairing is exact in vocabulary and opposite in force. Here the leaves are a lie; at 13:28 the tender branch and the new leaves are the appointed sign that summer, and so the end, is near. Pulpit notices the same botanical habit from the other side, quoting Luke 21:29 and adding that Jesus "puts the fig tree first, as being of its own nature the most forward to put forth its buds." ⚙ Read together in Mark's own order, the tree that is cursed for premature leaves in chapter 11 becomes the tree whose leaves teach the disciples to read the times in chapter 13. Matthew 24:32 carries the same pair of words.

Mark 13:28 · Matthew 24:32

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexemes G4808 συκῆ (in 15 vv) and G5444 φύλλον (in 5 vv); φύλλον is rare enough to make this a genuine verbal link inside one Gospel, though neither passage quotes the other

Figs as the test of the tree structural / thematic: confirmed

The noun σῦκον, a fig, occurs in only four verses of the NT, and three of them are the same argument: the sayings on knowing trees by their fruit, where figs are not gathered from thistles (Matthew 7:16) or from a bramble (Luke 6:44), and James asks whether a fig tree can bear olives (James 3:12). ⚙ Each says that a tree is known by what it yields and cannot yield what it is not. Mark 11:13 is the enacted form of that maxim, with the twist that this tree's foliage argued for a nature it did not have. Gill's application of the tree to "any outward professor of religion" moves along exactly this line.

Matthew 7:16 · Luke 6:44 · James 3:12

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexeme G4810 σῦκον (in only 4 vv), plus G2590 καρπός (in 56 vv) at Matthew 7:16 and Luke 6:44 and G4808 συκῆ (in 15 vv) at James 3:12. The rare lexeme would license a verbal tier, but these are three independent sayings that neither quote Mark nor each other, so the link is deliberately downgraded to the shared maxim that a tree is known by its fruit

The fig tree given one more year structural / thematic: confirmed

Luke 13:6-9 is the parable form: a fig tree in a vineyard, an owner who comes seeking fruit and finds none, a sentence of cutting down, and a dresser who begs one more year. Mark 11:12-14 is the same three moves without the reprieve. ⚙ The overlap is sequence and vocabulary together, which is why it is tiered structural rather than verbal: the shared words are ordinary, and neither text cites the other. Henry's reading of the sign as aimed at "the men of that generation" and Maclaren's "acted parable" both assume something like Luke's frame, that the seeking had gone on long enough.

Luke 13:6 · Luke 13:7

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexemes G4808 συκῆ (in 15 vv), G2147 εὑρίσκω (in 167 vv), G2590 καρπός (in 56 vv); the shared words are common enough that the real link is the identical narrative pattern of coming, seeking fruit, finding none and sentencing, so no quotation is claimed

The prophets' fig tree with no figs structural / thematic: confirmed

The sign is not new with Jesus. Jeremiah 8:13 has the Lord say there are no figs on the tree and the leaf is withered; Hosea 9:10 remembers Israel as firstripe fruit in the fig tree and Hosea 9:16 ends with a dried root that shall bear no fruit; Micah 7:1 is the cry of a gleaner who finds no cluster and no firstripe fig; Joel 1:7 and 1:12 have the fig tree barked and withered. ⚙ Mark's scene reads as this prophetic sign performed rather than spoken. Cambridge points in the same direction by citing the firstripe figs of Isaiah 28:4, Jeremiah 24:2, Hosea 9:10 and Nahum 3:12 from Farrar. No formal quotation is present in Mark 11:12-14, and none is claimed.

Jeremiah 8:13 · Hosea 9:16 · Micah 7:1 · Joel 1:7

basis: Cross-Testament Greek to Hebrew, so shared Strong's numbers cannot be computed and no verbal tier is possible; the recorded basis is the shared prophetic sign-motif of the fruitless fig tree as a verdict on Israel, attested in the sources (Cambridge cites the firstripe-fig passages via Farrar), with no formal citation in the Gospel text

Every man under his fig tree: the security that is withdrawn typological

The fig tree is the standing image of Israel at peace: Solomon's kingdom is described as every man dwelling safely under his own vine and fig tree (1 Kings 4:25), and Micah 4:4 sets the same picture in the age to come, with no one left to make them afraid. ⚙ That is what makes the curse of Mark 11:14 more than agricultural spite. The tree whose shade named the nation's safety is told that no one will eat from it again. The connection is figural and thematic, not lexical, and it cannot be otherwise across the Testaments.

1 Kings 4:25 · Micah 4:4

basis: Cross-Testament, so no shared Strong's lexeme is computable and no verbal claim is made; the link is figural, the fig tree as emblem of covenant security now withdrawn. Widely held in the preaching tradition but not asserted by any commentator in this brief, so the reading is offered as the machine layer's own and should be weighed as such

Leaves that heal instead of deceive structural / thematic: confirmed

φύλλον, leaf, appears in only five verses of the NT. Its last appearance is Revelation 22:2, where the tree of life yields its fruit every month and its leaves serve for the healing of the nations. ⚙ Set against Mark 11:13, the contrast is complete: leaves without fruit and a word that no one shall eat, against fruit every season and leaves that heal. Pulpit reaches for something like this when he looks forward to Israel "clothed with the richest fruits of all trees." No quotation or dependence is claimed; the link is the reversal of one motif.

Revelation 22:2

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexemes G5444 φύλλον (in 5 vv) and G2590 καρπός (in 56 vv); φύλλον is rare, but the two passages stand in contrast rather than citation, so the honest tier is structural, not verbal

⚙Christ in the Unittypology · verify

AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.

The hungry Lord who comes seeking fruit ancient/widely-held

The sources read the hunger of v. 12 christologically with one voice. JFB insists on "real bodily hunger"; Cambridge, citing Bp Wordsworth, sees the Humanity displayed "when about to give a proof of His Deity, that we may believe Him to be both God and Man"; Pulpit says the hunger "showed his humanity, which he was ever wont to do when he was about to display his Divine power," and then says the thing that ties the appetite to the mission: "Nothing but his Divine yearning after the Jewish people, his spiritual hunger for their salvation" can, in his judgment, explain the act at all. Maclaren, preaching on "what Christ sought and seeks," grants the limitation and the real disappointment, "the weak Christ, the limited Christ, the true human Christ," and then notes that beside every such weakness in the Gospels "there comes an apocalypse of power." ⚙ Mark has arranged the same double thing: the man who is hungry on the road is the Lord of the vineyard of Mark 12:2 who sends at the season to receive of the fruit.

Mark 11:12 · Mark 12:2 · Luke 13:6

The only destructive act, and the tree he would hang on novel

Maclaren observes what no other voice in the brief states so plainly: "It is our Lord's only destructive act." He adds the detail that keeps it from being theft, that the tree grew by the wayside and "probably, therefore, it belonged to nobody." Pulpit turns the moment toward the passion: the miracle "would show his disciples how soon he could have withered his enemies, who were about to crucify him; but he waited with long-suffering for their salvation." ⚙ Beyond what the sources say, this synthesis notes a symmetry and marks it as its own: within the same week the one who pronounced a curse on a tree was himself hung on one, and Paul reads that hanging as Christ becoming a curse for us (Galatians 3:13, quoting Deuteronomy 21:23). The word that sealed the fig tree in its barrenness and the word that sealed him under the curse of the law fall in the same few days. No commentator in this brief draws that line, so it is offered as a reading to be tested, not as received exposition.

Mark 11:14 · Galatians 3:13 · Deuteronomy 21:23

For the age: whether the sentence has a horizon ancient/widely-held

Pulpit, following Trench on the Miracles, presses the literal force of εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα: "for the age," a "merciful limitation," until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled, when Israel, which now says "I am a dry tree," shall accept the words "From me is thy fruit found." Benson records the same expectation from far older ground, quoting Origen that the synagogue is unfruitful "and will continue so till the fulness of the Gentiles shall come in." ⚙ So the hope is genuinely ancient and not invented here. What must be said honestly is that it does not rest on the grammar alone: εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα is used across the NT for unbounded duration, and Gill, Henry and JFB read the sentence as final without qualification. The hope stands on Paul's argument in Romans 11 rather than on this preposition, and this synthesis holds it as hope rather than as proof.

Mark 11:14 · Romans 11:23

Apparatus & Provenance

The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.

Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:

  • Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (c. 1905)
  • Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, — (1880s)
  • Charles Ellicott, Commentary for English Readers (1878)
  • Geneva Study Bible, Marginal Notes (1599)
  • Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory (1871)
  • John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible (1746–63)
  • Joseph Benson, Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1810s)
  • Matthew Henry, Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706)
  • The Pulpit Commentary, Spence & Exell, eds. (1880s)

Text: BSB (CC0) with the Berean interlinear and Strong's numbers; the parse data, glosses and lexeme frequencies above are taken from that apparatus and from the Verifier, not from this synthesis. Three honest uncertainties in this unit. (1) The clause οὐ γὰρ ἦν καιρὸς σύκων is genuinely disputed. Benson, with Dr Campbell, reads καιρός as the fig harvest and takes the clause as a parenthesis explaining why Jesus expected fruit, which requires what Benson himself calls a trajection in the word order; Ellicott prefers "the words in their more natural sequence"; JFB concedes "interpreters are not agreed"; Gill offers three possibilities and settles on none, and also reports a variant construing that ignores the accents, "where he was, it was the season of figs." The Greek does not decide it, and nothing above pretends it does. (2) The horticultural premise that the fig bears fruit before leaf, which carries the whole traditional reading, comes from the commentators (Benson, who credits Dr Campbell; JFB; Maclaren, who appeals to unnamed "experts"; Cambridge, citing Farrar; and Pulpit in his own words), not from the Greek text. It is reported as their claim. (3) Pulpit's reading of εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα as "for the age," and so as a limited sentence, is grammatically possible and supported by the lexicon's "properly, an age," but the idiom commonly means "for ever" in the NT, and other voices here (Henry, Gill, JFB) read the curse as final. Both are on the page. On chronology, Ellicott flags the difficulty between Mark's two day sequence and Matthew's compressed account without resolving it, and Cambridge's harmonisation (the disciples did not notice the withering until the next morning) is a proposal, not a datum. Barnes and Poole contribute only cross-references at these verses; their substance is at Matthew 21 and Mark 11:11, outside this unit, so they are not quoted above. Maclaren's entry is capped in the brief; only the portion present was used. The threads that pair this pericope with Jeremiah, Hosea, Micah, Joel, 1 Kings and Revelation claim no quotation: cross-Testament links cannot be verified by shared Strong's numbers at all, and the Revelation link, though it shares a rare lexeme, is a contrast rather than a citation.

✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)