The following is a brief look into Matthew 21:19 and Mark 11:20-21.
Matthew 21:19. And seeing a fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it but leaves, and said to it, “Let no fruit grow on you ever again.” Immediately the fig tree withered away.
Mark 11:20-21. Now in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. And Peter, remembering, said to Him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree which you cursed has withered away.”
This timestamp declares that it was “the following day” based on Mark 11:12, meaning it was the morning of the sixth day of the week; that is, Friday, Aviv 10, according to Tzadok priestly reckoning. See:
According to the national Judean Pharisaic calendar reckoning (Jerusalem’s official religious calendar – compare Exhibits “A” and "B"), it was Friday morning, Aviv 8, and not Aviv (Nisan) 10. In Jerusalem, Sabbath preparations have begun, with most people stopping their work at about 2:00 pm.
According to the Tzadok priestly calendar reckoning, as the morning of Friday, Aviv 10 dawned, Yeshua once again came towards Jerusalem, stopping briefly on the Mount of Olives, where we read that he wept over the city. Afterward, Yeshua and his disciples began their descent down the western slope of Olivet, walked across the Kidron Valley, and approached Jerusalem from the Eastern Gate. Here, we learn that Yeshua was hungry. He glanced over at a nearby fig tree and noticed that there were just leaves on the tree and his reference to its fatal fruit but bearing no fruit of the Spirit of the Righteousness of Life. So, Yeshua looked at the tree and spoke to it with the words,
“Let no one eat fruit from you again.”
Often, it is taught that this was a biting rebuke coming from the mouth of Yeshua. However, this is not how I understand the statement based on the context of the narrative. His statement appears to be one of incredible redemptive hope because he knew the story of Genesis chapter 3. I believe Yeshua was referring to the unrighteous fruit of the law of sin and death, which is what Paul spoke about in Romans 7. From Yeshua’s perspective, soon, he was to begin to purchase man’s redemption with his three-day death-to-resurrection story that would forever break man's eternal chains to the law of sin and death. His disciples saw and heard what he said, but nothing further came of it until the next morning when Yeshua’s disciples noticed the result of his words. The fig tree had withered, which is interesting in itself, but I'll save this for another time. However, what I do find attention-grabbing concerns Yeshua’s words about the tree lacking the fruit of the Spirit of Life, and I will show you why this is the case. According to the narrative and its context, we are shown that it had only leaves and, at the time, no fruit. I will show you that the fruit of that tree was the fatal fruit of sin and death. Furthermore, I'll also show you that the leaves were, in fact, toxic, appearing in the story to be connected to a memory of the first iniquity of Adam and Eve, as it is written about in Genesis 3:6-7.
Contextually, according to the narrative's timestamp, Yeshua’s spoken words towards the fig tree with its fatal fruit and toxic leaves appear to have taken place on the morning of the sixth day of the week – Friday, Aviv 10, according to the Tzadok priestly calendar reckoning of his day. This means he spoke these words on the day before the arrival of the weekly seventh-day Sabbath, bearing important significance based on some very old Judean midrash that Judaism has been passing downline for a very long time. According to Jewish legend, Adam’s creation and fall in the Garden of Eden occurred on the day before the weekly Sabbath, meaning on the sixth day of the week – what we would call "Friday." We learn this from Rabbinic literature in Or’ HaChaim Paragraph 3 and its teaching lesson from Exodus 20:8.
...An additional reason why the Torah tells us to remember the Sabbath day is mentioned in Midrash Tehilim (from Psalm 92). Adam was created on the sixth day and sinned on that day.
This Rabbinic legend goes on to remind us that Adam was not only created on the sixth day but also that he and his wife fell from their glorious state of created perfection on that very same day – the sixth day; that is "Friday," just before the coming of the weekly Sabbath. In other words, Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good but evil (Hebrew: etz hada'at tov v'ra) and thus forfeited the good Fruit of Righteousness and the gift of eternal life from the Spirit of Life. Said differently, Adam was nothing more than a corrupted "man-tree" eating from the fatal fruit of a specific fig tree, a tree representing the law of sin and death, which is what Paul was getting at in Romans 7. Reading through the Genesis creation story reminds us of what happened:
Genesis 3:7. Then the eyes of both of them (Adam and his woman) were opened, and they knew that they were naked (Hebrew: exposed), and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings (Hebrew: hagarot, meaning they covered themselves up in belts of fig leaves from that tree).
Let’s now continue with more from the Rabbinic legend as it was passed down from ancient days. This is the lesson from Louis Ginsberg's Legends of the Jews in 1909.
Legends of the Jews 1:2: For Adam, the Sabbath had a peculiar significance. When he was made to depart out of Paradise in the twilight of the Sabbath eve, the angels called after him, “Adam did not abide in his glory overnight!” Then the Sabbath appeared before God as Adam's defender, and he spoke: "O Master of the world! During the six working days, no creature was slain. If Thou wilt begin now by slaying Adam, what will become of the sanctity and the blessing of the Sabbath?”
Whether this legend is to be believed or not is irrelevant because it was Yeshua's lesson that is important.
The point to be made is that the Word, the Memra, the D’var, and the Logos indwelling Yeshua spoke the Word against the fig tree according to the known legend that ancient rabbinic Judaism was familiar with; that with the fall of Adam, he no longer possessed the Fruit of the Spirit of Life, but instead, he and his wife exchanged the truth for a lie and immediately had a change of diet. They were now eating the fatal fruit from the law of sin and death. Knowing the toxicity of the situation, what did they do? They attempted to cure their fallen nature by wrapping themselves up with the leaves of that fig tree, which represents their own actions of self-righteousness.
So, how did Yeshua respond to this matter? According to Matthew 21:19, he leveled a devastating blow against that fig tree on the morning of the sixth day of the week – Friday, Aviv 10, according to the calendar of the Tzadok priestly reckoning (see Exhibit "B" in the podcast extras on my website). For those familiar with or doing that calendar, they understood some very deep things that the religious Judean Pharisees would have likely missed because, according to their calendar reckoning, the date was Friday, Aviv 8 (in the year 27 C.E). What they likely missed was that he confirmed an old legend that man’s fallen spiritual condition was because of the story in Genesis 3:7.
If, in fact, this is what happened on that day - Friday Aviv 10 by Tzadok reckoning, which was just prior to the arrival of the weekly Sabbath, then it most certainly deepens the actions of Yeshua because all of mankind has naturally inherited the DNA of Adam's downline curse of baked-in sin and death. In other words, before the redemption purchase of Yeshua, all of mankind is principally wrapped up and covered in the toxic fig leaves of Adam and Eve. When we are born into this world, it is our natural state to be covered with the toxic leaves of Genesis 3:7 whilst ingesting sustenance from the fatal fruit of that fig tree of sin and death.
With this, we are thrust into a world that is like a black hole sucking us into a void that has been emptied from the fruit of the Spirit of Life. Yeshua's lesson boldly reveals that we are all born into this sad state of affairs, wrapped up or covered up in our tiring religious efforts and religious self-justification programs in order to unrelentingly attempt to cure our own fallen human condition, a condition that we can do nothing about on our own. We all bear the imprint of Adam's messenger DNA through no fault of our own. It's baked into the genome of our humanity. However, for observant Jews and countless non-Jews who want to follow in the paths of Judaism, this is the reason why Judaism places so much emphasis on keeping the laws of the weekly Sabbath, teaching us to guard the laws with the very fabric of our being because they say, our future eternal life depends on it, as we learn from the Rabbinic lessons of Or’ HaChaim Paragraph 3 on Exodus 20:8.
Along came the Sabbath and acted as an advocate for Adam in front of God…As a result of the Sabbath's plea, Adam was saved from death at that time. When Adam realized this, he composed this Psalm (Psalm 92), singing the praises of the Sabbath. The Torah asks us to remember the Sabbath as the day which saved Adam's life because this fact also insured our own existence and that of all of mankind.
And herein lies the problem. Religious Judaism understands and observes the weekly Sabbath as a day that absolutely must be sanctified and strictly kept because our future hope depends on it. But, in reality, the weekly Sabbath is the shadow image of Messiah and his redemptive work because Messiah is understood and referred to as “The Sabbath.” Said differently, Messiah Yeshua IS THE SABBATH who makes intercession with groanings too deep for words. By observing and guarding the laws of the Sabbath, Messiah himself removes the clothing of our withered leaves and toxic fruit and clothes us with the Spirit of Life and Good from the Etz haChaim - the Tree of Life.
Let us remain loyal to walk the course of this hopeful Messianic Faith in these trying and difficult times of trauma in this world of a political, social, and economic meltdown. Stay the course, friends! Don't jump ship. Don't ditch your faith because of what is happening all around us. As Yeshua himself said regarding the power of that Genesis 3:7 fig tree:
“Let no one eat fruit from you again.”
Shalom.
Avi ben Mordechai