17. Aurous, them) Whose perversity has just been mentioned.
18. 'Efl-g/vatfe, He hungered) though He was the King of Glory , see ver. 5. Wondrous humiliation !
19. 2ux5jK /A/«v, a certain fig-tree) the only one in that place. — qX^sv, He came) sc. as the road led by it. The fig-tree appears to have stood in a place of public resort. Our Lord's par taking of refreshment in public is illustrated also by John iv. 6, 7. [i.e. at Jacob's Well. See Gnomon in loc.] — JT' aurjji/, near to it1) — \iyii, x.r.X., says, etc.) By that very act He meets the difficulty which some might have otherwise experienced from astonishment at the Lord's being hungry, and coming to a tree without fruit.2 He was wont to display at the same time the greatest proofs of both His manhood and His Godhead ; see John xi. 35, 40.3 — (a^yJr/ Ix eo\j xapvbg yivyrai tic,
they were not weaned till that time. Amongst the ancient Greeks, also, it appears that mothers suckled their children till a comparatively late period. -(I. B.)
1 si ftq tyv'K'ha. ftovov) It is better to exhibit and produce nothing at all, than merely leaves. Reflect, O man, what kind of a tree thou art. — V. g.
2 Viz. That as God He should be hungry at all, or if hungry, that He should not create fruit. — ED.
3 Such instances, for example, were: — The humble condition of His nativity, on the one hand ; the testimony of the angels, on the other :
His circumcision, and yet His receiving the name Jesus (expressive of God
head and salvation) :
His purification, and yet at the same time the Hymns of Simeon and Anna : His dwelling at despised Nazareth, and yet His thereby fulfilling the pro
phecy : His obedience to His parents, and yet the specimen of noble gravity ex
hibited in a boy twelve years old : His baptism ; and, on the other hand, the protest of John, the very becom
ing reply of Jesus, the Voice from heaven, the Spirit of Gou descend
ing on Him :
The Hunger and Temptation; and, on the other hand, the ministry of angels: His informing them of His approaching Passion, followed however by His
Transfiguration on the Mount: His paying the tribute-money at Capernaum, and yet His declaration as
to the Son's being free, His miracle in the case of the fish and the coin : His washing the feet, yet declaring Himself Master and Lord : His being taken prisoner, yet declaring I am He ! His Cross, yet the royal inscription over it : His death and burial, yet the miracles, accompanied with the testimony of
the centurion. — Harm. Gosp., p. 455.