And when they drew near unto Jerusalem, and came to Bethphage, unto the mount of Olives, then sent Jesus two disciples,
All Commentaries on Matthew 21:1 Go To Matthew 21
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
se18. Now in the morning as He returned into the city, he hungered. This, therefore, took place on the day after Palm Sunday, on Monday, the eleventh day of Nisan, the first month; which Isaiah , according to our reckoning, the twenty-first of March. For three days afterwards (namely, on Friday in the Paschal season, which fell that year on the twenty-fifth day of March) Christ was crucified and offered up.
He hungered. Not with natural hunger, but with hunger voluntarily excited, say S. Chrysostom and Abulensis (qust103). For it was morning, and Christ had supped with Martha the evening previous; so that He would not so soon again be hungry. He stirred up, therefore, this hunger in Himself, that by it He might have occasion to curse the unfruitful fig tree. Wherefore, also, He sought figs upon it, although He knew that the time of figs was not yet, as Mark has ( Mark 11:13). For this was the twenty-first of March, as I have said, at which time there are no figs.
Observe: this hunger of Christ and the withering of the fig tree were before He cast out of the Temple the buyers and sellers. For He did this on this same Monday, but after the withering of the fig tree, as appears from Mark 11:14, &c, where he assigns the actions of Christ to the several days on which they were done.
