Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 21:19

"And seeing a fig tree by the way side, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only; and he saith unto it, Let there be no fruit from thee henceforward for ever. And immediately the fig tree withered away." — Matthew 21:19 (ASV)

In the way —Better, on the road. Fig trees were often planted by the roadside under the notion that dust suited them.

He came to it—St. Mark adds what St. Matthew indeed implies: that He came to see if He might perhaps find anything on it. The fig tree in Palestine bears two or three crops a year. Josephus, indeed, says that fruit might be found on the trees in Judea for ten months out of the twelve.

Commonly, at the beginning of April, the trees growing out of the rocks between Bethany and Jerusalem are bare of both leaves and fruit. This was likely the case for all but the single tree that attracted our Lord’s notice. It was in full foliage, and being so far in advance of its fellows, one might naturally have expected it to have the first ripe fruit (Hosea 9:10), which was usually gathered in May. Similarly, in Song of Solomon 2:13, the appearance of the green figs coincides with the flowers of spring and the time of the singing of birds. The illustrations from the branches and leaves of the fig tree in Luke 21:29-30 suggest that the season was somewhat early. For the special difficulty connected with St. Mark’s statement, the time of figs was not yet, see the note on Mark 11:13.

Let no fruit grow on you from now on, forever.—From the lips of someone with passions like our own, these words might seem to be the utterance of impatient disappointment. Here they assume the character of a solemn judgment passed not so much on the tree as on that of which it became the representative. The Jews, in their show of the “leaves” of outward devotion and absence of the “fruits” of righteousness, were like that barren tree.

Only a few weeks before (Luke 13:6), He had used the fig tree to which a man came seeking fruit and finding none as a parable for the state of Israel. Then the sentence, Cut it down, had been delayed in the hope of a possible improvement. Now, what He saw flashed upon Him in a moment (if we may so speak) as the parable embodied. The disappointment of the expectations He had formed in His human craving for food was like the disappointment of the owner of the fig tree in the parable. The sentence He now passed on the tree, and its immediate fulfillment, were symbols of the sentence and the doom that were about to fall on the unrepentant and unbelieving people.

Presently —The word is used in its older sense of “immediately.” As with nearly all such words—“anon,” “by and by,” and the like—humanity’s tendency to delay has lowered its meaning, so that it now suggests some delay.