Burning the Stubble

Burning the stubble portrays an ancient harvest field where gathered stalks are cast into a roaring fire while a robed man watches with staff in hand. The scene draws on the biblical world of threshing floors, wheat fields, and the final clearing of what remains after the useful grain has been gathered. In Scripture, stubble and chaff often become images of what cannot endure before God’s holiness: dry remnants consumed by flame after the harvest is complete. The artwork is especially suited to teaching themes of judgment, repentance, purification, and the separation of fruitfulness from waste. Its agrarian setting evokes the preaching imagery of John the Baptist, who spoke of the Messiah gathering wheat into the barn and burning chaff, as well as prophetic warnings that the arrogant and wicked would become stubble before the coming day of the Lord.