In this apparent difficulty lies the main truth and zest of the parable. The doom of sterility, be it carefully noted, was uttered by Jesus, not so much because of the _absence of fruit_, but because the tree, by its premature display of leaves, challenged expectations which a closer inspection did not realise. "It was punished," says an able writer, "not for being without fruit, but for proclaiming, by the voice of those leaves, that it had such. Not for being barren, but for being false."[32] Graphic picture of boastful and vaunting Israel! This conspicuous tree, nigh one of the frequented paths of Olivet, was no inappropriate type, surely, of that nation which stood illustrious amid the world's kingdoms--exalted to heaven with unexampled privileges which it abused--proudly claiming a righteousness which, when weighed in the balances, was found utterly wanting. It mattered not that the heathen nations were as guilty, vile, and corrupt as the chosen people. Fig-trees were they, too--naked stems, fruitless and leafless; but then they made no boastful pretensions. The Jews had, in the face of the world, been glorying in a righteousness which, in reality, was only like the foliage of that tree by which the Lord and His disciples now stood--mocking the expectations of its owner by mere outward semblance and an utter absence of fruit. The very day preceding, these mournful deficiencies had brought tears to the Saviour's eyes--stirred the depths of His yearning heart in the very hour of His triumph. He had looked down from the height of the mountain on the gilded splendours of the Temple Courts beneath; but, alas! He saw that sanctimonious hypocrisy and self-righteous formalism had sheltered themselves behind clouds of incense. Mammon, covetousness, oppression, fraud, were rising like strange fire from these defiled altars!