Mark gave more precise time intervals than Matthew did. Matthew related the cursing of the fig tree (Matt. 21:12-17) and Jesus' lesson to the disciples the following day (Matt. 21:18-22) back to back.
11:12-13 The next day was Tuesday. The incident occurred as Jesus and His disciples walked from Bethany to Jerusalem on Tuesday morning (Matt. 21:18). Mark explained that it was not the season for figs, for his non-Palestinian readers. Matthew did not add this explanation. It was late March.274The leaves on this tree suggested that it was bearing fruit, but it was not.
"Though ripe figs were not expected until June, smaller pre-figs' would appear with the leaves in March or April. Jesus was looking for those indicators that genuine fruit would one day result."275
11:14 Jesus saw an opportunity to teach His disciples an important truth using this tree as an object lesson. He cursed the tree to teach them the lesson, not because it failed to produce fruit. The tree was a good illustration of the large unbelieving element within the nation of Israel. God had looked to that generation of Israelites for spiritual fruit, as Jesus had hoped to find physical fruit on the fig tree (cf. Jer. 8:13; Hos. 9:10; Mic. 7:1; Nah. 3:12; Zech. 10:2). Israel's outward display of religious vitality was impressive, like the leaves on the tree, but it bore no spiritual fruit of righteousness. It was hypocritical (7:6; 11:15-19, 27-12:40).
"Jesus was on the eve of spiritual conflict with a nation whose prime and patent fault was hypocrisy or false pretense, and here he finds a tree guilty of the same thing. It gives him his opportunity, without hurting anybody, to sit in judgment on the fault."276
"In Mark's story world, hypocrisy exists where there is a discrepancy between appearance and underlying truth."277
This is the only destructive miracle that the Gospel writers attributed to Jesus.
