Forty years after that time, the terrible things that Jesus declared were to fall upon Jerusalem, did come to pass. The Jews rose against the Romans and made war upon them. A mighty Roman army came, and swept over all the land, bringing ruin and death everywhere. The Romans laid siege to Jerusalem, and built a strong wall around it, so that no one could come out or go in. The people fought desperately, until they were starved and could fight no more. At last the Romans broke into the Temple, and set the city on fire. Both the Temple and all the city were utterly destroyed; untold thousands of the people were slain, and many thousands more were sold as slaves. And from that time, seventy years after Jesus was born, and forty years after he died on the cross, the Jews have not had of their own a land or a city.
After teaching in the Temple all day, Jesus went out in the evening over the Mount of Olives to the home of his friends in Bethany.
Monday on the Mount and in the Temple
CHAPTER 74
AFTER THE royal coming of Jesus to the city and the Temple, on the next morning—which was Monday—Jesus left Bethany very early, without waiting for his breakfast, and with his twelve disciples walked over the Mount of Olives toward Jerusalem. The walk and the early morning air made him hungry, and seeing a fig tree covered with green leaves in a field near the road, he went to it, hoping to find some figs upon it.
The laws of the Jews allowed any person passing by a field which was not his own, to take as much fruit or grain as he wished to eat, but not to carry any away; so that Jesus had a right to go to this tree and help himself to its fruit. Jesus knew that it was not quite the time for ripe figs, for they do not become ripe in that country before May or June, and that day may have been in March. But on the sunny slope of the Mount of Olives figs often ripen early in the season and as the figs always come before the leaves, wherever the leaves were abundant, there might be among them some ripe figs.
But when Jesus came to the fig tree, and looked at it closely, he found that upon it was no fruit, either ripe or green, but only leaves. Then a thought came to Jesus, and in the presence of his disciples he spoke to the fig tree.