Ever wondered why Jesus cursed the fig tree that did not bear fruit? Now you can know!!! Mark Hamby is with Lamplighter Publishing. I highly recommend joining his e-mail list!
Pug Figs
"One of the puzzling
miracles of Jesus' teaching was the cursing of the fig tree because it didn't
have fruit; yet the text in Mark 11 states that it wasn't the time for figs. It
seems to me, at least on the surface, that the poor tree didn't have a standing
chance. I have speculated for years about this unusual scene but recently I
found the answer as I was walking through Herod's coastal seaport of
Caesarea.
When I arrived in
Israel to make preparations for our Lamplighter Guild-Israel
tours,it was early spring. When Jesus came upon the fig tree it would have been
during this same season. It is true that spring is not the time for figs but the
first fig tree I saw was full of figs. You see, in early spring a pungent and
bitter fruit appears known as a pug fig. In Hebrew, pug means premature
baby. (1) The leaves would be
sparse at this time of year but these early pug figs would be in
abundance.
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| Pug Figs in Israel (Photo by Mark Hamby) |
Pug figs were also
the forerunners of the later sweet
figs that one could eat. (2) If there were no
pug figs there would be no edible figs in the fall. (3) Poor people or
those who were very hungry would eat these first fruit figs though the taste was
not desirable. (4) When Jesus comes on
the scene he is hungry but finds only leaves--no pug figs.
The reason Jesus
curses the tree is because the tree was not functioning as it should by
providing fruit for the poor and hungry. Another reason is because the tree was
full of leaves which represented a life of hypocrisy--it looked good on the
outside but had no fruit within.
The fact that Jesus
performs this miracle right on the heels of cleansing the hypocrisy of the
temple now makes perfect sense; it also serves as a reminder that our lives need
to be in a perpetual state of fruitfulness. We never know when God may need to
pluck a few figs for some hungry travelers who need our assistance."
In Christ,
Rebecca
1 comment:
That is really interesting. I think I knew about the second reason (all the leaves meaning hypocrisy), but I didn't know about the first! And it was always confusing later on, because someone had told me that figs weren't in season. So, it didn't seem 'fair' to the tree, in a sense, that he cursed it for not having fruit when it wasn't in season...
Thanks for sharing this!!!! :)
Your lil' sis,
Sarah
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