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Commons Job and His Wife Restored to Prosperity Linnell Set of Illustrations for the Book of Job |
Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just
and true are thy ways, thou King of saints (Revelation 15: 3)
So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his
beginning (Job 42: 12)
After this lived Job and hundred and forty years, and saw his
sons, and his sons' sons, even four generations. So Job died,
being old and full of days (Job 42: 16-17)
In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou has had no
pleasure (Hebrews 10: 6)
[2] And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.
[3] And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.
Job 42
[12] So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning: for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses.
[13] He had also seven sons and three daughters.
[14] And he called the name of the first, Jemima; and the name of the second, Kezia; and the name of the third, Keren-happuch.
[15] And in all the land were no women found so fair as the daughters of Job: and their father gave them inheritance among their brethren.
[16] After this lived Job an hundred and forty years, and saw his sons, and his sons' sons, even four generations.
Hebrews 10
[6] In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.
[7] Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.
[8] Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law;
[9] Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.
[10] By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
...
[16] This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;
[17] And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.
Blake's final illustration of the Book of Job is titled Job and His Wife Restored to Prosperity. Job had traveled a journey through destruction, doubt and despair. He had sunk into the darkness of his own distorted psyche and had been brought out by the Wind of the Spirit which replaced worn out hand-me-down images to which he had tenaciously clung. He had been guided into building new understandings and new ways of relating in the exterior world. He now had the perspective and the tools to live in the joyous knowledge of being a human vehicle in which the Spirit dwells. The image which Blake choose to represent Job's new status was music. Job and his family, representing the Brotherhood of Man, joined in producing the song which expressed the gifts that they had received and then returned joyfully to a world unaccustomed to their offering of saving grace.
Kathleen Raine in Golgonnoza : City of Imagination, makes this statement about Blake's use of the term 'Art':
"In Eastern civilizations some form of meditation is the norm of spiritual practice. For Blake art was such a practice and the arts are the channels through which visions of these 'eternal things displayed' are embodied and disseminated. 'Prayer is the Study of Art. Praise is the Practice of Art.' Prayer is receptive, praise active: the one must precede the other." (Page 6)
Producing music together is the Practice of Art for which Job's long journey was the study or preparation. Blake pictures images in his final illustration which allude to the bringing together of the Four Zoas (instinct, emotion, intellect and intuition), of Male and Female (the sun and moon), and of Earth and Heaven (job stands on earth and reaches for heaven). What remains of the process which was described in the Book of Job is for the Holy Spirit as Imagination to remain active as Job continues to live in the knowledge of the presence of God Within.
Europe, Plate iii, (E 60)
"Five windows light the cavern'd Man; thro' one he breathes the air;
Thro' one, hears music of the spheres; thro' one, the eternal vine
Flourishes, that he may recieve the grapes; thro' one can look.
And see small portions of the eternal world that ever groweth;
Thro' one, himself pass out what time he please, but he will not;
For stolen joys are sweet, & bread eaten in secret pleasant.
Milton, Plate 27 [29], (E 125)
"But in Eternity the Four Arts: Poetry, Painting, Music,
And Architecture which is Science: are the Four Faces of Man.
Not so in Time & Space: there Three are shut out, and only
Science remains thro Mercy: & by means of Science, the Three
Become apparent in time & space, in the Three Professions
Poetry in Religion: Music, Law: Painting, in Physic & Surgery:
That Man may live upon Earth till the time of his awaking,
And from these Three, Science derives every Occupation of Men."
Jerusalem, Plate 3, (E 146)
"Poetry Fetter'd, Fetters the Human Race! Nations are Destroy'd,
or Flourish, in proportion as Their Poetry Painting and Music,
are Destroy'd or Flourish! The Primeval State of Man, was Wisdom,
Art, and Science."
Vision of Last Judgment, (E 559)
"Poetry Painting & Music the three Powers in
Man of conversing with Paradise which the flood did not Sweep
away"
Jerusalem, Plate 77, (E 231)
"I know of no other
Christianity and of no other Gospel than the liberty both of body
& mind to exercise the Divine Arts of Imagination.
Imagination the real & eternal World of which this Vegetable
Universe is but a faint shadow & in which we shall live in our
Eternal or Imaginative Bodies, when these Vegetable Mortal Bodies
are no more. The Apostles knew of no other Gospel. What were
all their spiritual gifts? What is the Divine Spirit? is the Holy
Ghost any other than an Intellectual Fountain? What is the
Harvest of the Gospel & its Labours? What is that Talent which it
is a curse to hide? What are the Treasures of Heaven which we are
to lay up for ourselves, are they any other than Mental Studies &
Performances? What are all the Gifts. of the Gospel, are they not
all Mental Gifts? Is God a Spirit who must be worshipped in
Spirit & in Truth and are not the Gifts of the Spirit Every-thing
to Man? O ye Religious discountenance every one among
you who shall pretend to despise Art & Science! I call upon you
in the Name of Jesus! What is the Life of Man but Art & Science?
is it Meat & Drink? is not the Body more than Raiment? What is
Mortality but the things relating to the Body, which Dies? What
is Immortality but the things relating to the Spirit, which Lives
Eternally! What is the joy of Heaven but Improvement in the
things of the Spirit? What are the Pains of Hell but Ignorance,
Bodily Lust, Idleness & devastation of the things of the
Spirit?
...
Let every Christian as much as in him lies engage himself
openly & publicly before all the World in some Mental pursuit for
the Building up of Jerusalem"
Here I Am Lord
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