Scripture · Matthew 13:33
Matthew 13:25 · The enemy sows weeds
The Enemy Sowing Tares
But while everyone was asleep, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and slipped away.
One hand scatters seed while the face turns to check behind. In Millais’s The Enemy Sowing Tares, the familiar work of a farmer becomes an act of harm. Matthew 13:25 names what the sleepers cannot yet see: someone is sowing weeds among their wheat.
What does The Enemy Sowing Tares show?
The barefoot figure bends forward in a red robe, clutching a seed bag against his chest. His other hand hangs low over the ground, and a grin sharpens the sideways glance. Yellow openings in the heavy clouds illuminate the darkness unevenly. An animal prowls at the left, while a snake lies close to the figure’s feet.
Birmingham Museums Trust identifies this 1865 oil painting as The Parable of the Tares. Its isolated sower concentrates attention on the destructive act before its consequences are visible. Millais gives the enemy a human body and a furtive gesture. The broader passage later identifies the enemy as the devil, but the robe, landscape, and accompanying animals belong to the artist’s visualization.
Featured in: John Everett Millais’s Bible Paintings: The Holy Family That Made Dickens Furious
What does Matthew 13:25 mean?
The field has already received good seed. While everyone sleeps, an enemy adds weeds and departs; the damage becomes visible only as the crop grows. When the servants offer to pull the weeds, the owner fears that they will uproot the wheat too. He orders them to wait until harvest, when the two can be separated.
Jesus later explains that the field is the world, the harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. The passage holds together the reality of evil, the protection of what is growing, and the certainty of judgment. Its patience is not indifference to harm. The painting makes us confront the hidden act, while the full parable prevents that act from becoming the final word.
The furtive hand gives Matthew’s hidden sabotage a visible form, while the promised harvest keeps it within a larger story.
Sources
Birmingham Museums Trust: The Parable of the Tares. The current owning archive supplies the exact image, the 1865 date, artist, title, and oil-painting classification.
Matthew 13 — Berean Standard Bible. The parables in their narrative setting, including Jesus’ explanations of the sower and the weeds.
Also from Matthew:Marriage of the VirginThe Dream of Saint Joseph
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