Mark 11:11-25

The Temple and the Fig Tree (11:11-25)

Having made clear to those with eyes to see both Whom He was and the spirit in which He had come, meek and lowly and in peace as far as politics was concerned, Jesus moved on to the Temple, and there we are significantly told that ‘He looked around’. Remembering what He had previously done as a young firebrand (John 2:14-17) this gains in significance. But that is not specifically what Mark has in mind. He has more in mind an examination that looks around and is angry at what it sees (compare Malachi 3:1-2), just as He will shortly examine the fig tree in the same vein. In fact this whole passage is a mixture of symbolism and reality. He is hungry, because He sees the crowds in their hunger, and wants to meet their need. But He is angry with those who are responsible for their continuing hunger, those who see themselves as the fig tree who should be feeding His people. And He wants to demonstrate that the Temple can no longer meet the needs of the people and must be replaced by a spiritual Temple. And he does it by parallelism

For as mentioned above the Temple and the fig tree are closely interwoven here. His careful scrutiny of the temple is paralleled with His scrutiny of the fig tree, He finds fruitlessness and deadness in both, and His subsequent action in the Temple is to be explained in terms of the withering of the fig tree because of its barrenness. In a sense He was giving the leadership the opportunity to put things right. But He knew that they would not. Pruning would not be sufficient. The fig tree/Temple was only fit to be destroyed. Judgment must inevitably fall on Jerusalem because it too was withered and dead.

Analysis.

a And He entered into Jerusalem, into the temple, and when He had looked round about upon all things, it being now evening, He went out to Bethany with the twelve (Mark 11:11).

b And on the morrow, when they were come out from Bethany, He hungered (Mark 11:12).

c And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, He came, 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 of figs (Mark 11:13).

d And He responded and said to it, “No man eat fruit from you henceforward for ever.” And His disciples heard it (Mark 11:14).

e And they come to Jerusalem, and He entered into the temple, and began to cast out those who sold and those who bought in the temple (Mark 11:15 a).

f And He overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and the seats of those who sold the doves (Mark 11:15 b).

e And He would not permit that any man should carry a vessel through the temple (Mark 11:16).

d And He taught, and said to them, “Is it not written, My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations? But you have made it a den of brigands,” and the Chief Priests and the Scribes heard it (Mark 11:17-18 a).

c And they sought how they might destroy Him, for they feared Him (Mark 11:18 b).

b For all the crowd was astonished at His teaching (Mark 11:18 c).

a And every evening He went forth out of the city (Mark 11:19).

Note that in ‘a’ having entered Jerusalem and surveyed the Temple, He went out of the city, and in the parallel He went out of the city every evening. He had come to minister there, but the city was not for Him. In ‘b’ He was hungry, and in the parallel the people on whose behalf He hungers hear His teaching with ‘astonishment’. In ‘c’ He finds nothing but leaves on the fig tree, and in the parallel those represented by the fig tree reveal their barrenness by seeking to destroy Him. In ‘d’ He condemns the fig tree’s fruitlessness, and His disciples heard it, and in the parallel He condemns the Temple’s fruitlessness and the Chief Priests and Scribes heard it. In ‘e’ He cast out the dealers who profaned the Temple, and in the parallel He prevented from proceeding through the Temple those who profaned it by using it as a short cut. In ‘f’ He dealt with the profaner’s tools of trade.