---
title: "The Fig Tree and This Generation"
category: "prophecy"
description: "Matthew 24:32-35: the fig tree teaches reading the signs Jesus named, echoes the prophets' promise of Israel planted again in her land, and gives no year to count from; \"this generation\" is the generation that sees the signs begin."
tags: ["matthew", "mark", "luke", "tribulation", "dispensationalism", "method/word-study", "lang/greek"]
draft: false
primary_passage: "Matthew 24:32-35; Mark 13:28-31; Luke 21:29-33"
bible_references: ["Matthew 24:2-3", "Matthew 24:15", "Matthew 24:21", "Matthew 24:4-36", "Matthew 24:42-44", "Matthew 26:2", "Mark 13:3", "Mark 13:28-30", "Luke 21:20-32", "Luke 13:6-9", "Jeremiah 24:5-8", "Jeremiah 8:13", "Hosea 9:10", "Micah 7:1", "Matthew 21:18-22", "Mark 11:12-25", "Matthew 12:39-42", "Matthew 23:36", "John 1:48-50", "James 3:12", "James 5:8-9", "Revelation 6:13", "Isaiah 40:8", "Hosea 9:16-17", "Hosea 14:5-7", "Jeremiah 24:6-7", "Ezekiel 36:24-26", "Ezekiel 37:8", "Amos 9:15", "Matthew 23:38-39", "Matthew 24:16", "Matthew 24:20", "Mark 11:20-21", "Luke 21:24", "Matthew 11:16", "Matthew 12:45", "Mark 13:30", "Luke 21:32", "Jeremiah 31:35-36", "Luke 13:6-7"]
date_created: 2026-09-26
date_modified: 2026-10-08
ai_provider_models:
  - anthropic/claude-opus-5.5
---

# The Fig Tree and This Generation

Two days before the Passover at which He would be crucified (Matthew 26:2), Jesus sat on the Mount
of Olives with four of His disciples (Mark 13:3). They had asked Him, "Tell us, when will these
things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" (Matthew 24:3, ESV).
He had described the distress to come and His own return "on the clouds of heaven with power and
great glory" (24:30, ESV). Then He pointed at a tree:

> ✝️ Matthew 24:32-35 (ESV)
>
> 32 "From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its
> leaves, you know that summer is near. 33 So also, when you see all these things, you know that he
> is near, at the very gates. 34 Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all
> these things take place. 35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away."

**In one sentence:** As a fig tree's new leaves tell you summer is near, the signs Jesus named tell
His people that He is at the doors; and "this generation" is the generation that sees those signs
begin, and the date belongs to the Father alone.

## Key Takeaways

*(This section follows the [Key Takeaways](https://the-way.lewy.au/about/key-takeaways/) format — see that page for what each part is for.)*

### Types & Prophecy

Jesus prophesies that the events of Matthew 24:4-25, from the first birth pains through the
abomination of desolation and the "great tribulation" (24:21), will run to completion within the
lifetime of the generation that sees them begin, and that His coming follows "immediately" (24:29).
This site reads that sequence as Daniel's seventieth week, still future, after the church is caught
up. The fig tree teaches reading the season from its signs. Its budding also echoes the prophets'
promise that Israel will be planted in her land again (Jeremiah 24:6; Hosea 14:5), a promise God
has made certain and has not dated.

### Lessons about Jesus

- **Jesus speaks with the authority of God.** "My words will not pass away" (24:35) claims for His
  own sayings what Isaiah claimed for "the word of our God," which "will stand forever" (Isaiah
  40:8, ESV).
- **Jesus is the One who is near.** The signs point to a Person "at the very gates" (24:33).
- **Jesus entrusts the date to His Father.** "Concerning that day and hour no one knows ... but the
  Father only" (24:36, ESV).

### Memory verses

> ✝️ Matthew 24:33 (ESV)
>
> 33 So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates.

> ✝️ Matthew 24:35 (ESV)
>
> 35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

### Be Transformed

- **Think.** Jesus has told you the order of the last things, and every word of it will stand. Put
  your weight on what He said about the future.
- **Attitude.** Be calm about the calendar and eager for the King. The Father has fixed the day;
  your part is to be found ready.
- **Do.** When someone offers you a date for Christ's return, open Matthew 24:36 with them. Then
  spend the conversation on what He asks you to do while you wait (24:42-44).

### Prayer

Father, You have fixed the times and seasons by Your own authority, and Your word stands when heaven
and earth are gone. Thank You that Your Son Jesus has told us what is coming, and that He is coming
Himself. Keep us awake and ready, free from the fear of dates and full of the hope of His appearing.

In Jesus' name. Amen.

## Study outline

- [The setting](#the-setting-a-tuesday-on-the-mount-of-olives). Where the saying falls in the
  discourse, and a fig tree in leaf that same week.
- [The fig tree and Israel](#the-fig-tree-and-israel). The lesson Jesus draws, the case for hearing
  Israel in it, what is settled and what is contested, and why no clock follows.
- ["This generation": whose, and of what?](#this-generation-whose-and-of-what) What "all these
  things" covers, the readings of "this generation", and the one this study takes.
- [Near, at the very doors](#near-at-the-very-doors). Who is near, the Son's words, and a Father who
  holds the date.
- [Discussion questions](#discussion-questions). Six, for a group or on your own.

## The Setting: A Tuesday on the Mount of Olives

### Where the saying falls

The discourse answers the disciples' question of 24:3, and Jesus has just given the answer's climax:
"Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened" (24:29, ESV), and then
"they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven" (24:30, ESV). The fig tree comes next,
and "this generation" after it. At verse 36 Jesus turns: "But concerning that day and hour no one
knows" (ESV). So verses 32-35 sit on a hinge. Behind them is the sequence of events; ahead of them is
the command to "stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming" (24:42, ESV). The
fig tree tells the disciples what the sequence is for, and verse 34 tells them how long it runs.

All three Synoptic Gospels carry the saying in the same order: fig tree, then "this generation"
(Mark 13:28-30; Luke 21:29-32).

### A fig tree in leaf that week

The season was spring. Passover fell two days after the discourse (Matthew 26:2), and the day before
the discourse, on the road into Jerusalem, Jesus had seen "in the distance a fig tree in leaf ... for it was not
the season for figs" (Mark 11:13, ESV). Fig trees were coming into leaf that week when Jesus
said "as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near."
The word for summer is θέρος (*theros*, G2330).

## The Fig Tree and Israel

### The lesson Jesus draws

All three accounts call this a parable, and Jesus interprets it in His next sentence. The comparison
is between two acts of inference: leaves let you infer summer; "all these things" let you infer that
He is near. That is the lesson He states, and it governs everything else the tree may carry.

There is a plain reason He reached for a fig. It is the tree in that landscape whose leafing marks
the season: "unlike most Judean trees, fig trees lost their leaves each year; they produced new
leaves... when summer was coming, before the wheat harvest and well before the grape vintage" (*NIV
Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible*, note on Luke 21:29-30).

### Why dispensational readers hear Israel in it

A common dispensational reading goes further: the fig tree is Israel, and its budding is Israel
living again as a nation in her land. It has Scripture behind it. The prophets use the fig of Israel repeatedly: Jeremiah 8:13 and Micah 7:1 picture a failed
people as a failed fig harvest, and Jesus Himself told of a fruitless fig tree given one more year
(Luke 13:6-9). Five features of this week, and of this discourse, bring that symbol close.

### The withered tree and Hosea's sentence

**The disciples had seen a fig tree withered that morning.** On the Monday Jesus found a fig tree in
leaf with no fruit and said, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again" (Mark 11:14, ESV). On the
Tuesday morning, the day of this discourse, they passed it "withered away to its roots" (Mark 11:20,
ESV), and Peter said, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered" (11:21, ESV). Mark
wraps that tree around the clearing of the temple (tree cursed, Mark 11:12-14; temple cleared,
11:15-19; withered tree found, 11:20-25), and the *ESV Study Bible* is plain about its meaning: "The
specific reference, though, is to Israel, since in the OT the fig tree often serves as a metaphor for
Israel and its standing before God" (note on Mark 11:13-14). The same men heard "from the fig tree learn
its lesson" that evening.

**The curse repeats Hosea's sentence on Ephraim.** Hosea sets Israel's beginnings under a fig: "Like
the first fruit on the fig tree in its first season, I saw your fathers" (Hosea 9:10, ESV). Six
verses later comes the sentence, "their root is dried up; they shall bear no fruit" (9:16, ESV), and
then exile: "they shall be wanderers among the nations" (9:17, ESV). The Septuagint of 9:16 reads
"his roots are dried up; he shall bear no more fruit" (this study's translation), and Jesus' tree is
cursed never again to bear fruit and found ἐξηραμμένην ἐκ ῥιζῶν (*exērammenēn ek rhizōn*, Mark
11:20), "withered from the roots": the same verb, ξηραίνω (*xērainō*, G3583, "dry up"), and the
same noun, ῥίζα (*rhiza*, G4491, "root"). Hosea's book does not end at the curse. It closes with
the same people rooted again: "he shall take root like the trees of Lebanon... They shall return and
dwell beneath my shadow" (Hosea 14:5, 7, ESV).

### Jeremiah's figs, a judgment with an end, and a people in Judea

**Jeremiah's figs go back to the land.** In Jeremiah's vision the good figs are the exiles from Judah
(Jeremiah 24:5), and the promise attached to them is a return: "I will bring them back to this land.
I will build them up, and not tear them down; I will plant them, and not pluck them up. I will give
them a heart to know that I am the LORD" (24:6-7, ESV).

**The discourse opens on an "until".** Jesus' last words in the temple were "See, your house is left
to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes
in the name of the Lord'" (Matthew 23:38-39, ESV). The judgment has a stated end, and the end is
Israel welcoming her Messiah.

**The signs require a Jewish people in the land.** The sequence the fig tree points to has people "in
Judea" fleeing (Matthew 24:16, ESV), a "holy place" where the abomination stands (24:15), and a
prayer that the flight not fall "on a Sabbath" (24:20, ESV). However those verses are read, a Jewish
people must be living in Judea for them to happen.

### What the text settles, and what stays contested

**Two things are settled.** The first is the lesson Jesus draws: leaves are to summer as the signs are
to His coming, and verse 33 applies the leaves to "all these things". The second is that Israel
restored to her land belongs to the future Jesus describes. That rests on the prophets (Jeremiah
24:6; Ezekiel 36:24; Amos 9:15) and on the discourse's own requirements in Matthew 24:15-20, and it
would stand if the fig tree had never been mentioned.

**Whether the fig tree itself alludes to Israel is contested**, and the case against it is real.
Jesus' interpretation names no referent. συκῆ (*sykē*, G4808) occurs sixteen times in the New
Testament, and four are ordinary fig trees (John 1:48, 50; James 3:12; Revelation 6:13). Luke widens the picture to "the fig tree, and all the trees" (Luke 21:29, ESV). Monday's tree
was cursed "ever" to bear no fruit and withered from the roots, so Tuesday's budding tree cannot be
that same tree revived; and Hosea pictures the restoration with the lily, the trees of Lebanon, the
olive, grain and the vine (Hosea 14:5-7), with no fig among them.

**This study's judgment: the echo is there, and it is well grounded.** A disciple who had seen Israel's
barren fig withered to the roots that morning, and who knew Hosea and Jeremiah, would hardly hear
"learn from the fig tree" without thinking of Israel. A tree in leaf before its fruit also fits the
order the prophets give: a nation back in its land before it is given a new heart, the way Ezekiel
saw the bones covered with flesh while "there was no breath in them" (Ezekiel 37:8, ESV). A reader
who hears Israel's restoration in the budding fig is standing on Scripture. Hold it as a resonance
the setting supports, a step below the lesson Jesus states in so many words.

### What the fig tree does not supply: a clock

The step the text never takes is from the tree to a calendar: fig tree as Israel, budding as 1948 or
1967, and "this generation" as a forty-year window from then. The parable's application sets the
leaves beside "all these things", the signs of verses 4-25, which on this site's reading fall in
Daniel's seventieth week after the church is caught up. Israel in the land is the stage those signs
need, and the count Jesus gives begins with the signs themselves. The calendar version has also
failed in practice: forty years from 1948 ran out in 1988 with no return. It
hands the discourse the one thing Jesus withholds at verse 36. [Israel's Regathering and
Refining](https://the-way.lewy.au/israel-and-church/israels-regathering-and-refining/#about-1948) weighs 1948 against
the prophets and reaches the same place: a stage that fits their shape, with no text that dates it.
Where 1948 and 1967 *can* be weighed is against the prophets' regathering promises and Luke's "times
of the Gentiles" (Luke 21:24), a passage about Gentile political control of Jerusalem; see [The
times of the Gentiles](https://the-way.lewy.au/last-things/immediately-after/#the-times-of-the-gentiles) in *Immediately After*.

## "This Generation": Whose, and of What?

### Two questions in one sentence

"Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place" (24:34,
ESV). The *ESV Study Bible* calls this "this difficult passage" and sets out five readings of it
(note on 24:34). Two questions sit inside the sentence and have to be taken separately: **what are "all these things",
and whose is "this generation"?**

### "All these things": what the Greek settles

**The first question the Greek does answer.** πάντα ταῦτα (*panta tauta*, "all these things") appears
twice in consecutive verses: at 24:33, "when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at
the very gates", and again at 24:34. Whatever it
means at 33 it means at 34, and at 33 it means *the signs that indicate His nearness*, the things you
see **before** He arrives. The *NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible* puts it without hedging: "all these
things. Must refer to the same events as 'all these things' in v. 33, which occur before the second
coming" (note on 24:34). So "all these things" are the events of verses 4-25, up to the coming
itself.

### Whose generation? Where the readings divide

**The second question is where the readings divide.** Matthew uses γενεά (*genea*, G1074) eight
times outside the genealogy of chapter 1, five of them as "this generation" (γενεά αὕτη, *genea
hautē*: Matthew 11:16; 12:41, 42, 45; 23:36), and every one means his own contemporaries: "an evil
and adulterous generation" (Matthew 12:39), the generation judged alongside Nineveh (12:41-42), and one paragraph before
this discourse opens, "all these things will come upon this generation" (23:36), said of the men just
charged with killing the prophets. Louw-Nida codes γενεά here under both a group sense (10.4, 11.4)
and a time sense (67.144) at once, so the lexicon will not decide it either.

That consistent record is the strongest argument for the first reading, **Jesus'
contemporaries**. The *NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible*, having tied "all these things" to the
events before the coming, concludes that Jesus is promising "all of the preliminary events,
including the destruction of Jerusalem" within about forty years (note on 24:34), and the *NIV
Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible* observes that the temple fell about forty years after He spoke
(note on 24:34). On that reading Matthew's usage holds without exception, and AD 70 is the
fulfilment.

Matthew's usage also answers a reading some dispensational writers lean on. The LSB footnotes "Or
race" at all three parallels (Matthew 24:34; Mark 13:30; Luke 21:32), the NLT "Or this nation," and
the *ESV Study Bible* lists as its fourth option that γενεά means "race," the Jewish people, "who
will not pass away until Christ returns" (note on Matthew 24:34). The sense exists in Greek, and
God's preservation of Israel is taught elsewhere (Jeremiah 31:35-36). In Matthew, though, γενεά
always names people living at one time, and this study reads verse 34 that way.

### This study's reading

**This study takes the fifth of the ESV Study Bible's options**: "this generation" is the generation
alive when the events of verses 4-25 begin, the people who see "all these things" and for whom the
fig tree's lesson is given. On that reading Jesus is saying that once the sequence starts it runs to
completion within a single lifetime. That keeps Matthew's ordinary sense of γενεά, a cohort of people
living at one time, and it leaves verse 29's "immediately" doing honest work.

The contemporaries reading has to carry the tribulation of verse 21, "such as has not been from the
beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be" (ESV), and the coming that follows it
"immediately" (24:29), inside AD 70. If "all these things" were completed in AD 70,
the coming that verse 29 says follows them "immediately" has now waited nineteen centuries. The
fifth reading pays its own price, and it should be named: it gives "this generation" a referent in
the future where Matthew's other uses point at the men in front of Jesus. This study judges
that cost smaller, because the demonstrative in verse 34 is defined by the seeing in verse 33.

This reading gives no year to count from. The signs will be recognisable when they come; nobody is told when they start, and Jesus
says so Himself at verse 36.

### AD 70: the near fulfilment

The temple fell as Jesus said it would (Matthew 24:2), and [The Olivet Discourse](https://the-way.lewy.au/last-things/olivet-discourse/#ad-70-question-one-answered-and-documented)
documents it from Josephus and Eusebius. It was the discourse's near fulfilment and a pattern of the
far one, as [Immediately
After](https://the-way.lewy.au/last-things/immediately-after/#the-question-on-the-mount-of-olives) sets out. The temple got a datable
answer. The coming did not.

## Near, at the Very Doors

### Who is near

The Greek of verse 33 has no subject: ἐγγύς ἐστιν ἐπὶ θύραις (*engys estin epi thyrais*), "is near,
at the doors." The ESV supplies "he" and the NIV "it"; the LSB footnotes "Or it," and the CSB "Or it; that is,
summer." Read as "it," the saying repeats the parable's own summer; read as "he," it names the One
whose coming verse 30 has just described.
θύρα (*thyra*, G2374, "door") is the word James uses when he tells the churches, "the coming of the Lord is
at hand ... behold, the Judge is standing at the door" (James 5:8-9, ESV). Near, at the doors, is where someone stands who is about
to come in.

### His words

Verse 35 closes the paragraph: "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away"
(ESV). The verb is the one verse 34 used of the generation, παρέρχομαι (*parerchomai*, G3928), in a
second sense: there time running out, here ceasing to exist. [Heaven and Earth Will Pass
Away](https://the-way.lewy.au/last-things/heaven-and-earth-will-pass-away/#words-that-outlast-creation) works the saying through.

**This shows that God has fixed the end, and His Son's word guarantees it.** The sequence of verses
4-25 will run as Jesus said, in the order He said, within the lifetime He said.

### The date the Father keeps

Then, in the next breath, Jesus puts the date out of reach: "But concerning that day and hour no one
knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only" (24:36, ESV). [The Day No One Knows](https://the-way.lewy.au/jesus/the-day-no-one-knows/)
works through what verse 36 says about the Son's knowledge.

**This shows that God is sovereign over time itself.** The Father has fixed the day; the Son has
told you the order; and the one command that follows is "therefore, stay awake" (24:42, ESV). On
this site's reading the church is caught up before the seventieth week begins, so you are not
watching for the abomination of desolation. You are watching for your Lord. The generation that sees
the fig tree leaf will know He is at the doors. You already know He is coming, and that His word
cannot fail, so you can live today ready to meet Him.

## Discussion Questions

1. Verses 34 and 35 use the same verb, παρέρχομαι, "pass away." What does Jesus claim for His words by setting them beside heaven and earth?
2. That morning the disciples had seen the fig tree Jesus cursed "withered away to its roots" (Mark
   11:20). How would that, and Hosea 9:16, have shaped what they heard in "from the fig tree learn
   its lesson"?
3. Jeremiah's good figs are brought back to the land, planted, and then given "a heart to know that I
   am the LORD" (Jeremiah 24:6-7). What does that order tell you about how God keeps His promises to
   Israel?
4. Matthew 23:36 says "all these things will come upon this generation" of Jesus' contemporaries.
   How do you hold that verse together with the "immediately" of Matthew 24:29 when you read 24:34?
5. James tells the churches "the Judge is standing at the door" (James 5:9), and Jesus says the
   Father alone knows the day (Matthew 24:36). How do you live expecting Him soon while refusing to
   name a date?
6. "Therefore, stay awake" (Matthew 24:42). What would being ready to meet Jesus look like in your
   week?

## References & Recommended Reading

- **ESV Study Bible** (Crossway) — notes on Matthew 24:34 (the five readings of "this generation"),
  24:35, and Mark 11:12-21 and 11:13-14 (the fig tree and the temple). ESV verse text throughout.
  Quoted briefly with attribution.
- **NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible** (Zondervan) — notes on Matthew 24:34 ("all these things").
- **NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible** (Zondervan) — notes on Matthew 24:34 and Luke 21:29-30
  (the deciduous fig in a Judean landscape).
- **CSB Ancient Faith Study Bible** (Holman) and **Legacy Standard Bible** (Lockman / Three Sixteen)
  — footnotes on Matthew 24:33 ("Or it") and, in the LSB, on Matthew 24:34, Mark 13:30 and Luke 21:32
  ("Or race"); **NLT Life Application Study Bible** (Tyndale) — footnote on Matthew 24:34.
- Louw & Nida, *Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains* — γενεά
  (10.4, 11.4, 67.144).
- Original-language data from this project's `bible-text.db` — MACULA Greek (SBLGNT) for συκῆ,
  γενεά and θύρα; unfoldingWord interlinear for Matthew 24:32-35.

### On this site

- [The Olivet Discourse](https://the-way.lewy.au/last-things/olivet-discourse/) — the whole discourse, from the disciples' question to
  the command to stay awake.
- [Immediately After](https://the-way.lewy.au/last-things/immediately-after/) — Daniel's seventieth week, "immediately", the times
  of the Gentiles, and the rapture's place.
- [The Day No One Knows](https://the-way.lewy.au/jesus/the-day-no-one-knows/) — Matthew 24:36 and the Son's knowledge.
- [The Rapture of the Church](https://the-way.lewy.au/last-things/rapture/) — the pretribulational case.