* seeing.
Mt 21:19 Lu 13:6-9
* a fig-tree.
The fig-tree, [suke [,] is a genus of
the polygamia triaecia class of plants, seldom rising above
twelve feet, but sending off from the bottom many spreading
branches. The leaves are of a dark green colour, nearly a
span long, smooth, and irregularly divided into from three to
five deep rounded lobes; and the fruit grows on short and
thick stalks, of a purplish colour, and contains a soft,
sweet, and fragrant pulp, intermixed with numerous small
seeds.
* haply.
Ru 2:3 1Sa 6:9 Lu 10:31 12:6,7
* he found.
Isa 5:7
* for.
Dr. Campbell observes, that the declaration, "for the time of
[ripe, Ed.] figs was not yet," is not the reason why our Lord
did not find any fruit on the tree, because the fig is of that
class of vegetables in which the fruit is formed in its
immature state before the leaves are seen. But as the fruit
is of a pulpy nature, the broad, thick leaves come out in
profusion to protect it from the rays of the sun during the
time it is ripening. If the words, "for the time," etc.
however, are read as a parenthesis, they then become a reason
why Jesus Christ should look for fruit, because the season for
gathering not having fully come, it would remove all suspicion
that the fruit had been gathered: while the presence of the
leaves incontestably proved the advance of the tree to the
state in which fruit is found.
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