<p>13:6 <i>And he spoke this parable: A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit thereon and found none</i>- The element of unreality is that there was a fig tree amongst vines. It has been observed that this was never done, because the fig would take up too much of the ground water, the shade of the fig tree would stop anything else growing, and the fig would attract birds which would eat the grapes from the vines. But Israel were God's special enthusiasm and He did this. The idea is perhaps that this tree was the special project of the man. In Matthew 21, the Lord uses the unfruitful <i>fig</i> tree as a springboard for telling the parable of the vineyard. Israel were God's special concern and focus. His passion for them led to Him breaking His own principle, of not planting different seeds together (Lev. 19:19; Dt. 21:9 &quot;do not sow&nbsp;a field of yours with two different kinds of seeds&quot;). Likewise, the Father likens Himself in the prophets to a man who has divorced His wife (Israel) and yet still wants her to come back to Him, even though that was an abomination to Him. Or the Lord telling the one talent man that he ought to have lent out the money for interest, when this was forbidden by the Law.</p><p>Or it could be that the Lord is using the fig tree as it was used in Judaism- a metaphor for the religious leaders, in whose shadow their students sat. We would have soon ran out of patience with them; but the Lord's strong desire was that even they should be saved. And some of them did repent and accept baptism after the Lord's resurrection. He set us an example of hoping against hope for response even from the most unlikely; and it paid off.</p>