Scripture · Matthew 14:22-33
Matthew 4:24
He Healed the Sick
News about Him spread all over Syria, and people brought to Him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering acute pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed, and He healed them.
A great tree shelters a crowd bringing sick people together. Thick, layered paint makes Tanner’s late healing scene feel restless and unfinished at its edges.
About the artwork
Around 1930 Tanner explored a crowd gathered with the sick beneath a large tree in several works. In this small panel, the group matters more than an unmistakable central protagonist: no single figure can securely be identified as Christ. Thick layers and scraped passages of paint distinguish it from Tanner’s smoother early pictures.
The Smithsonian describes the panel as probably a study for the more finished Disciples Healing the Sick. Curator Darrel Sewell suggested that illness experienced by Tanner and his son might have made the subject personal, but presented this as a possibility. Neither the proposed relationship between the works nor that biographical reading should be stated as certain.
Featured in: Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Bible Paintings: Humiliated at Home, Honoured in Paris
What does Matthew 4:24 mean?
Matthew 4:23–25 summarizes Jesus’ early activity in Galilee: teaching, proclaiming the kingdom, and healing. Verse 24 lists people brought to Him with different illnesses and afflictions. The widening geographical response emphasizes that the news draws sufferers from beyond one village.
The passage helps explain the gathering of people in Tanner’s scene, but it does not settle the identities within this loosely painted study. The museum’s proposed connection with a picture of disciples also leaves room for the theme of healing to extend beyond one identifiable Gospel episode.
Matthew 4:24 gives the crowd a shared purpose—bringing suffering people for healing—while the panel’s precise narrative identification remains open.
Sources
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington (1983.95.199); oil on wood, 41.3 × 54.5 cm.
Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Bible Paintings: Humiliated at Home, Honoured in Paris. Artwork reading adapted from this guide.
Matthew 4 — Berean Standard Bible. Context for Matthew 4:24.
Also from Matthew:Marriage of the VirginThe Dream of Saint Joseph
Continue looking:Saint James the GreaterThe Sermon on the MountThe Savior