<p>21:19&nbsp;<em>And seeing a fig tree by the roadside, he went to it and</em>- Symbolic of Israel (Jer. 24:1-8; Hos. 9:10,16; Is. 28:4 RV; 34:2,4,8; Rev. 6:13; Lk. 13:6-9; 17:6; 19:6; Mic. 7:1 RV). Israel were seen by the Lord as the tree by the roadside, whose fruit should have been for all that passed by (Dt. 23:24). But because there was not even the glimmer of this kind of giving of fruit, they were condemned by the Lord.</p><p><em>Found nothing thereon</em>- His disappointment was great because of His earlier parable about Himself and the fig tree, in which He had put these words in His own mouth: &quot;Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it and dung it: and if it bear fruit, well; but if not, after that thou shalt cut it down&quot;. He looked over and around the tree, desperate to see at least some signs of fruit. He realized that the tree of Israel had to be cut down.</p><p><em>But leaves only</em>- The inadequate covering for sin with which human history began in Eden.</p><p><em>And he said to it: Let there be no fruit from you</em>- If the fruit on the fig tree represents spiritual fruit, does this suggest that now the possibility of repentance was taken away from them? It was as if judgment day had really arrived for them even in this life; for there will be no possibility of repentance then. Or it could be that the Lord was annulling the prophecies about&nbsp;<em>Israel</em>&nbsp;filling the face of the earth with fruit. His emphasis then would have been on &quot;May no fruit grow&nbsp;<em>on you</em>&quot;. The tree of Israel was to be cut down, and the fruit was to come from the fig tree &quot;and all the trees&quot; of the Gentile nations. This is the connection with the Lord's later sign of the fig tree and all the trees (Lk. 21:29); when spiritual fruit is seen on all of them, when the Gospel has gone into all the world, to all the trees / nations, then shall the end come (Mt. 24:14).&nbsp;</p><p><em>Again- </em>AV &quot;For ever&quot;, for the&nbsp;<em>aion</em>, the age. He could mean throughout the new age which was to start, for Israel are prophesied as finally blossoming and filling the face of the earth with fruit (Is. 27:6). Or it could be that that prophecy about Israel was conditional, and the Lord is accepting that their rejection of Him meant that it and other such prophecies were now disallowed from fulfilment in themselves by what they were going to do to Him.</p><p><em>And immediately the fig tree withered away</em>- &quot;From the roots&quot;, Mark adds. This meant the ground was cursed- the land of Israel. And the roots may refer to the ending of the Mosaic law. &quot;Ephraim 'fruitful' is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit... My God will cast them away, because they did not hearken unto him: and they shall be wanderers among the nations&quot; (Hos. 9:10,16,17).</p>