Mark 11:20-21

The Withered Fig Tree

11:20 In the morning as they passed by, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. 11:21 Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered.”

Isaiah 5:5-6

5:5 Now I will inform you

what I am about to do to my vineyard:

I will remove its hedge and turn it into pasture, ¹ 

I will break its wall and allow animals to graze there. ² 

5:6 I will make it a wasteland;

no one will prune its vines or hoe its ground, ³ 

and thorns and briers will grow there.

I will order the clouds

not to drop any rain on it.

Matthew 3:10

3:10 Even now the ax is laid at ⁴  the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

Matthew 7:19

7:19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

Matthew 12:33-35

Trees and Their Fruit

12:33 “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad ⁵  and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is known by its fruit. 12:34 Offspring of vipers! How are you able to say anything good, since you are evil? For the mouth speaks from what fills the heart. 12:35 The good person ⁶  brings good things out of his ⁷  good treasury, ⁸  and the evil person brings evil things out of his evil treasury.

Matthew 21:19

21:19 After noticing a fig tree ⁹  by the road he went to it, but found nothing on it except leaves. He said to it, “Never again will there be fruit from you!” And the fig tree withered at once.

Matthew 21:33

The Parable of the Tenants

21:33 “Listen to another parable: There was a landowner ¹⁰  who planted a vineyard. ¹¹  He put a fence around it, dug a pit for its winepress, and built a watchtower. Then ¹²  he leased it to tenant farmers ¹³  and went on a journey.

Matthew 21:44

21:44 The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and the one on whom it falls will be crushed.” ¹⁴ 

John 15:6

15:6 If anyone does not remain ¹⁵  in me, he is thrown out like a branch, and dries up; and such branches are gathered up and thrown into the fire, ¹⁶  and are burned up. ¹⁷ 

Deuteronomy 6:4-8

The Essence of the Covenant Principles

6:4 Listen, Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! ¹⁸  6:5 You must love ¹⁹  the Lord your God with your whole mind, ²⁰  your whole being, ²¹  and all your strength. ²² 

Exhortation to Teach the Covenant Principles

6:6 These words I am commanding you today must be kept in mind, 6:7 and you must teach ²³  them to your children and speak of them as you sit in your house, as you walk along the road, ²⁴  as you lie down, and as you get up. 6:8 You should tie them as a reminder on your forearm ²⁵  and fasten them as symbols ²⁶  on your forehead.

Deuteronomy 11:26-31

Anticipation of a Blessing and Cursing Ceremony

11:26 Take note – I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: ²⁷  11:27 the blessing if you take to heart ²⁸  the commandments of the Lord your God that I am giving you today, 11:28 and the curse if you pay no attention ²⁹  to his ³⁰  commandments and turn from the way I am setting before ³¹  you today to pursue ³²  other gods you have not known. 11:29 When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are to possess, you must pronounce the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. ³³  11:30 Are they not across the Jordan River, ³⁴  toward the west, in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah opposite Gilgal ³⁵  near the oak ³⁶  of Moreh? 11:31 For you are about to cross the Jordan to possess the land the Lord your God is giving you, and you will possess and inhabit it.

Deuteronomy 11:2

11:2 Bear in mind today that I am not speaking ³⁷  to your children who have not personally experienced the judgments ³⁸  of the Lord your God, which revealed ³⁹  his greatness, strength, and power. ⁴⁰ 

Deuteronomy 2:20

2:20 (That also is considered to be a land of the Rephaites. ⁴¹  The Rephaites lived there originally; the Ammonites call them Zamzummites. ⁴² 

Revelation 22:11

22:11 The evildoer must continue to do evil, ⁴³  and the one who is morally filthy ⁴⁴  must continue to be filthy. The ⁴⁵  one who is righteous must continue to act righteously, and the one who is holy must continue to be holy.”

[5:5]  ¹ tn Heb “and it will become [a place for] grazing.” בָּעַר (ba’ar, “grazing”) is a homonym of the more often used verb “to burn.”

[5:5]  ² tn Heb “and it will become a trampled place” (NASB “trampled ground”).

[5:6]  ³ tn Heb “it will not be pruned or hoed” (so NASB); ASV and NRSV both similar.

[3:10]  ⁴ sn Laid at the root. That is, placed and aimed, ready to begin cutting.

[12:33]  ⁵ tn Grk “rotten.” The word σαπρός, modifying both “tree” and “fruit,” can also mean “diseased” (L&N 65.28).

[12:35]  ⁶ tn The Greek text reads here ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpos). The term is generic referring to any person.

[12:35]  ⁷ tn Grk “the”; the Greek article has been translated here and in the following clause (“his evil treasury”) as a possessive pronoun (ExSyn 215).

[12:35]  ⁸ sn The treasury here is a metaphorical reference to a person’s heart (cf. BDAG 456 s.v. θησαυρός 1.b and the parallel passage in Luke 6:45).

[21:19]  ⁹ tn Grk “one fig tree.”

[21:33]  ¹⁰ tn The term here refers to the owner and manager of a household.

[21:33]  ¹¹ sn The vineyard is a figure for Israel in the OT (Isa 5:1-7). The nation and its leaders are the tenants, so the vineyard here may well refer to the promise that resides within the nation. The imagery is like that in Rom 11:11-24.

[21:33]  ¹² tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.

[21:33]  ¹³ sn The leasing of land to tenant farmers was common in this period.

[21:44]  ¹⁴ tc A few witnesses, especially of the Western text (D 33 it sy^s Or Eus^syr), do not contain 21:44. However, the verse is found in א B C L W Z (Θ) 0102 Ë^1,13 Ï lat sy^c,p,h co and should be included as authentic.

[15:6]  ¹⁵ tn Or “reside.”

[15:6]  ¹⁶ sn Such branches are gathered up and thrown into the fire. The author does not tell who it is who does the gathering and throwing into the fire. Although some claim that realized eschatology is so prevalent in the Fourth Gospel that no references to final eschatology appear at all, the fate of these branches seems to point to the opposite. The imagery is almost certainly that of eschatological judgment, and recalls some of the OT vine imagery which involves divine rejection and judgment of disobedient Israel (Ezek 15:4-6, 19:12).

[15:6]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “they gather them up and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.”

[6:4]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the Lord, our God, the Lord, one.” (1) One option is to translate: “The Lord is our God, the Lord alone” (cf. NAB, NRSV, NLT). This would be an affirmation that the Lord was the sole object of their devotion. This interpretation finds support from the appeals to loyalty that follow (vv. 5, 14). (2) Another option is to translate: “The Lord is our God, the Lord is unique.” In this case the text would be affirming the people’s allegiance to the Lord, as well as the Lord’s superiority to all other gods. It would also imply that he is the only one worthy of their worship. Support for this view comes from parallel texts such as Deut 7:9 and 10:17, as well as the use of “one” in Song 6:8-9, where the starstruck lover declares that his beloved is unique (literally, “one,” that is, “one of a kind”) when compared to all other women.

[6:5]  ¹⁹ tn The verb אָהַב (’ahav, “to love”) in this setting communicates not so much an emotional idea as one of covenant commitment. To love the Lord is to be absolutely loyal and obedient to him in every respect, a truth Jesus himself taught (cf. John 14:15). See also the note on the word “loved” in Deut 4:37.

[6:5]  ²⁰ tn Heb “heart.” In OT physiology the heart (לֵב, לֵבָב; levav, lev) was considered the seat of the mind or intellect, so that one could think with one’s heart. See A. Luc, NIDOTTE 2:749-54.

[6:5]  ²¹ tn Heb “soul”; “being.” Contrary to Hellenistic ideas of a soul that is discrete and separate from the body and spirit, OT anthropology equated the “soul” (נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh) with the person himself. It is therefore best in most cases to translate נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) as “being” or the like. See H. W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 10-25; D. Fredericks, NIDOTTE 3:133-34.

[6:5]  ²² sn For NT variations on the Shema see Matt 22:37-39; Mark 12:29-30; Luke 10:27.

[6:7]  ²³ tn Heb “repeat” (so NLT). If from the root I שָׁנַן (shanan), the verb means essentially to “engrave,” that is, “to teach incisively” (Piel); note NAB “Drill them into your children.” Cf. BDB 1041-42 s.v.

[6:7]  ²⁴ tn Or “as you are away on a journey” (cf. NRSV, TEV, NLT); NAB “at home and abroad.”

[6:8]  ²⁵ sn Tie them as a sign on your forearm. Later Jewish tradition referred to the little leather containers tied to the forearms and foreheads as tefillin. They were to contain the following passages from the Torah: Exod 13:1-10, 11-16; Deut 6:5-9; 11:13-21. The purpose was to serve as a “sign” of covenant relationship and obedience.

[6:8]  ²⁶ sn Fasten them as symbols on your forehead. These were also known later as tefillin (see previous note) or phylacteries (from the Greek term). These box-like containers, like those on the forearms, held the same scraps of the Torah. It was the hypocritical practice of wearing these without heartfelt sincerity that caused Jesus to speak scathingly about them (cf. Matt 23:5).

[11:26]  ²⁷ sn A blessing and a curse. Every extant treaty text of the late Bronze Age attests to a section known as the “blessings and curses,” the former for covenant loyalty and the latter for covenant breach. Blessings were promised rewards for obedience; curses were threatened judgments for disobedience. In the Book of Deuteronomy these are fully developed in 27:1–28:68. Here Moses adumbrates the whole by way of anticipation.

[11:27]  ²⁸ tn Heb “listen to,” that is, obey.

[11:28]  ²⁹ tn Heb “do not listen to,” that is, do not obey.

[11:28]  ³⁰ tn Heb “the commandments of the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[11:28]  ³¹ tn Heb “am commanding” (so NASB, NRSV).

[11:28]  ³² tn Heb “walk after”; NIV “by following”; NLT “by worshiping.” This is a violation of the first commandment, the most serious of the covenant violations (Deut 5:6-7).

[11:29]  ³³ sn Mount Gerizim…Mount Ebal. These two mountains are near the ancient site of Shechem and the modern city of Nablus. The valley between them is like a great amphitheater with the mountain slopes as seating sections. The place was sacred because it was there that Abraham pitched his camp and built his first altar after coming to Canaan (Gen 12:6). Jacob also settled at Shechem for a time and dug a well from which Jesus once requested a drink of water (Gen 33:18-20; John 4:5-7). When Joshua and the Israelites finally brought Canaan under control they assembled at Shechem as Moses commanded and undertook a ritual of covenant reaffirmation (Josh 8:30-35; 24:1, 25). Half the tribes stood on Mt. Gerizim and half on Mt. Ebal and in antiphonal chorus pledged their loyalty to the Lord before Joshua and the Levites who stood in the valley below (Josh 8:33; cf. Deut 27:11-13).

[11:30]  ³⁴ tn The word “River” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[11:30]  ³⁵ sn Gilgal. From a Hebrew verb root גָלַל (galal, “to roll”) this place name means “circle” or “rolling,” a name given because God had “rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you” (Josh 5:9). It is perhaps to be identified with Khirbet el-Metjir, 1.2 mi (2 km) northeast of OT Jericho.

[11:30]  ³⁶ tc The MT plural “oaks” (אֵלוֹנֵי, ’eloney) should probably be altered (with many Greek texts) to the singular “oak” (אֵלוֹן, ’elon; cf. NRSV) in line with the only other occurrence of the phrase (Gen 12:6). The Syriac, Tg. Ps.-J. read mmrá, confusing this place with the “oaks of Mamre” near Hebron (Gen 13:18). Smr also appears to confuse “Moreh” with “Mamre” (reading mwr’, a combined form), adding the clarification mwl shkm (“near Shechem”) apparently to distinguish it from Mamre near Hebron.

[11:2]  ³⁷ tn Heb “that not.” The words “I am speaking” have been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[11:2]  ³⁸ tn Heb “who have not known and who have not seen the discipline of the Lord.” The collocation of the verbs “know” and “see” indicates that personal experience (knowing by seeing) is in view. The term translated “discipline” (KJV, ASV “chastisement”) may also be rendered “instruction,” but vv. 2b-6 indicate that the referent of the term is the various acts of divine judgment the Israelites had witnessed.

[11:2]  ³⁹ tn The words “which revealed” have been supplied in the translation to show the logical relationship between the terms that follow and the divine judgments. In the Hebrew text the former are in apposition to the latter.

[11:2]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “his strong hand and his stretched-out arm.”

[2:20]  ⁴¹ sn Rephaites. See note on this word in Deut 2:11.

[2:20]  ⁴² sn Zamzummites. Just as the Moabites called Rephaites by the name Emites, the Ammonites called them Zamzummites (or Zazites; Gen 14:5).

[22:11]  ⁴³ tn Grk “must do evil still.”

[22:11]  ⁴⁴ tn For this translation see L&N 88.258; the term refers to living in moral filth.

[22:11]  ⁴⁵ tn Grk “filthy, and the.” This is a continuation of the previous sentence in Greek, but because of the length and complexity of the construction a new sentence was started in the translation.