At the burning bush
William Blake had much to say about Moses:(Erdman 67; Song of Los, Plate 3):
Adam stood in the garden of Eden:
And Noah on the mountains of Ararat;
They saw Urizen give his Laws to the Nations
By the hands of the children of Los.
Adam shudderd! Noah faded! black grew the sunny African
When Rintrah gave Abstract Philosophy to Brama in the East:
(Night spoke to the Cloud!
Lo these Human form'd spirits in smiling hipocrisy. War
Against one another; so let them War on; slaves to the eternal Elements)
Noah shrunk, beneath the waters;
Abram fled in fires from Chaldea;
Moses beheld upon Mount Sinai forms of dark delusion:
In this opaque section Moses is listed along with Adam, Noah, and Abram
(Abraham) Each of the three is a key to three periods of Hebrew history:
For Christians Moses, found with Elijah and Jesus on the Mount of
Transfiguration is foremost.
Mount Sinai was the LAW, The 'dark delusion' was the Ten Commandments.
In a letter to Dr. Trusler (Erdman 702):
"The wisest of the Ancients considerd what is not too Explicit as the fittest for
Instruction because it rouzes the faculties to act. I name Moses Solomon Esop
Homer Plato"
Trusler was a 'divine' with strong opinions that Blake found
erroneous. Here Blake assumes that the name Moses refers to the Pentateuch.
"Eternal Identity is one thing & Corporeal Vegetation is another
thing Changing Water into Wine by Jesus & into Blood by Moses
relates to Vegetable Nature also..."
(Erdman 230-31; Plate 77 of Jerusalem):
"A Male within a Female hid as in an Ark & Curtains,
(Erdman 138; The Book of Milton)
"And these the names of the Twenty-seven Heavens & their Churches
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'Visions of the Last Judgment:
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