The Book of Job is one of the world’s great epics. It voices man’s need of belief in God; it is the cry of one pierced to death with the arrows of misfortune, yet asserting with passionate faith, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” Earthquake, famine, bereavements, pestilence cannot eradicate from man the deep-rooted assurance that God not only exists, but is just and loving, and the Book of Job is the supreme poetical expression of this fundamental belief.
As such, it welded itself into Blake’s imagination, and the designs he made to illustrate it are worthy in all respects to be set alongside the ancient tragic text.
Plate 1 represents Job, his wife, and their sons and daughter kneeling around them, praising God at the rising of the sun. Their flocks and herds surround them, and a noble tree—on which their musical instruments are hung—overshadows them; in the background, at the base of rocky hills, a Gothic cathedral is daringly set, to typify the soul of worship made visible. “Thus did Job continually.” The border that surrounds the finely-wrought plate is very slight but decorative and thoughtful. An altar with a flaming sacrifice upon it is indicated, with these words inscribed upon its front:
The letter killeth,
The Spirit giveth Life,
It is spiritually discerned.
While, above, the words,
Our Father which art in Heaven,
Hallowed be Thy name,
set the keynote to the whole work.
Plate 2 contains no less than twenty-three figures, and two scenes are being enacted simultaneously.
Job and his wife still sit beneath the tree with their children, but above them we see the heavens open and God giving power to Satan, who strides like Urizen through flame, to test the uprightness of His servant Job. “This was the day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself before God.” The border is exquisite, light as gossamer, and containing in its fine web-like lines beautiful suggestions. Angels with heads bent beneath Gothic tracery receive the flame and smoke that are the thought-sacrifices of two shepherds, who mind the sleeping flocks in their fold. The next two plates are (3) the Destruction of the Children of Job, and (4) the reception of the news by Job and his wife.
Plate 5 is one of the finest of the series. Job and his wife, sitting on the ruins of their home, give of their straitened means to the blind and halt, while “the angels of their love and resignation,” as Gilchrist sympathetically terms them, hallow and beautify the scene. But above, the Almighty sits enthroned, with an expression almost remorseful, and the angels shrink away in horror, for He has given Satan leave to try Job to the uttermost, only reserving his life. “Behold he is in thy hand, but save his life.” Satan, with face averted from the sublime spectacle of Job in his affliction, has concentrated the fires of God into a phial which he is about to pour on his head.