The owner's question explains his order to "cut it down." He had come seeking fruit for three years and found none (Luke 13:7). Barnes says this means the owner had been "a long time" expecting fruit, long enough to show the tree was barren. The question asks why a tree that gives nothing should go on taking. Gill explains that unfruitful trees "suck up the juices of the earth, and draw away nourishment from other trees that are near them."

The dresser does not argue with the owner's judgment. He asks for mercy and time: "Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it" (Luke 13:8). He accepts the outcome if nothing changes: "And if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down" (Luke 13:9). The parable ends there, without telling us what the tree did.

Fig trees in a vineyard were not the usual planting. Barnes says it was not common, "but our Lord represents it as having been sometimes done." Gill notes that some think the three years refer to Jesus' ministry, but he thinks Jesus "seems rather to allude to the nature of fig trees, which, if fruitful, bear in three years time."

The word "cumbereth" translates the Greek katargei, from katargeo. Thayer's lexicon defines it as to render idle or inactive, and in this verse, to deprive the ground of its strength and make it barren. Barnes says the same: "By taking up the juices of the earth, this useless tree rendered the ground sterile."

This parable shows both God's right to expect fruit and His patience in waiting for it. Matthew Henry says the parable "primarily refers to the nation and people of the Jews," and Gill suggests that by the vineyard "may be meant, the Jewish nation," pointing to Isaiah 5:1. In Isaiah 5:4 God asks, "What could have been done more to my vineyard?" The owner's question in Luke 13:7 carries the same note of long care met with no fruit.

Yet the story does not end with the axe. The dresser intercedes, and the tree is given another year. Matthew Henry writes, "Christ is the great Intercessor," and adds that ministers who dress the vineyard should intercede for it too. Barnes says the parable shows that God "spares them long" and "gives them opportunities of repentance." Coming right after "except ye repent" (Luke 13:3, 5), the parable explains why judgment has not fallen yet: God is giving time.