About the Fig Tree

My desire for you is that you will have an abundant and fruitful life. A rooted fig tree bearing fruit is a symbol found in the Bible and literature.

It reminds us to make choices and live life on purpose.

Close-up of a branch with green leaves and small green figs against a blue sky with some clouds.

Jesus & the Fig Tree

A white mug with floral design and the word 'Joy' printed on it, a blue book with religious text on the cover, a jewelry necklace with a floral cross pendant draped over the book, a green plant in the background, and a wooden table surface.

In the morning, when he returned to the city, he was hungry. And seeing a fig tree by the side of the road, he went to it and found nothing at all on it but leaves.

Then he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” And the fig tree withered at once. When the disciples saw it, they were amazed, saying, “How did the fig tree wither at once?”

Jesus answered them, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it will be done. Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive.”

Matthew 21:18-22

A stylized illustration of a fig tree with branches and roots, in blue color, with the tree's roots shown below on a black background.

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig-tree in the story.

From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked.
One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous
poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing
editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was
Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and off-
beat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and
above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out.

I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig-tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t
make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them,
but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs
began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

Sylvia Plath, "The Fig Tree" excerpt from The Bell Jar.