⚡WEB · Mark 11:20
What does Mark 11:20 mean?
"As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away from the roots."
— Mark 11:20 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
He taught, saying to them, “Isn’t it written, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations?’ But you have made it a den of robbers!”
The chief priests and the scribes heard it, and sought how they might destroy him. For they feared him, because all the multitude was astonished at his teaching.
When evening came, he went out of the city.
As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away from the roots.
Peter, remembering, said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree which you cursed has withered away.”
Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God.
For most certainly I tell you, whoever may tell this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and doesn’t doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is happening; he shall have whatever he says.
Explanation
Mark 11:20 describes the moment when Jesus and his disciples, walking along the road the next morning, noticed that a fig tree Jesus had spoken to the day before was now completely dried up, withered all the way down to its roots. What had been a live, leafy tree was now visibly dead — not just wilted on the surface, but destroyed at its foundation.
To understand this verse, we need the surrounding story. The day before, in Mark 11:12–14, Jesus and his disciples were walking from Bethany to Jerusalem. Jesus was hungry and saw a fig tree in leaf, but when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves — no fruit — because it wasn't yet the season for figs. Jesus then said, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again," and his disciples heard him say it. Mark then inserts the account of Jesus overturning the tables in the temple, condemning the corrupt commercial practices happening there and declaring that the temple, meant to be "a house of prayer for all nations," had been turned into "a den of robbers" (
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