Four winged figures stand in a row, arms raised high.
Bible in art · Job
The Book of Job, plate 14: When the morning Stars sang together, and all the Sons of God shouted for joy
William Blake · 1825
The Cleveland Museum of Art
Plate 14 of William Blake’s Job engravings (1825), perhaps the best known of the set.
The text names only singing stars and shouting sons of God; Blake shows the stars as four winged figures with arms raised, the sun and moon as figures with horses and serpents, and the days of creation from Genesis in the side borders. Job and his family watch from below.
From the text
- “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” (Job 38:4)
- “the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy” (Job 38:7)
- The Pleiades and Orion, in the top border (Job 38:31)
The artist’s own
- The morning stars as winged figures with raised arms
- Sun and moon as a charioteer and a woman drawn by serpents
- The six days of Genesis 1 in the side borders
Details
The morning stars
Outstretched arms
A bearded figure spreads both arms across the clouds.
Horses of the sun
A youth drives the sun’s horses; the moon’s serpents are on the right.
Job’s household
Job, his wife and friends watch from below.
William Blake, British, 1757–1827. The Cleveland Museum of Art (Mr. and Mrs. Charles G. Prasse Collection, 1963.303.15) · Engraving (proof impression) · Cleveland Museum of Art Open Access: Collection API record "share_license_status": "CC0" (Creative Commons Zero, https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/).