The Book of Job, plate 10: The Just Upright Man is laughed to scorn

William Blake · 1825
The Cleveland Museum of Art

Plate 10 of William Blake’s Job engravings (1825). The three friends turn on Job.

Blake gives the friends one shared gesture: six arms stretched out at Job, fingers pointing. Job kneels, looking up, his wife behind him. In the border he engraved several of Job’s sayings from different speeches, with an eagle and an owl at the bottom corners.

From the text

“The righteous and upright man is a laughingstock” (Job 12:4)

“Have pity on me, my friends” (Job 19:21)

“Though He slay me, I will hope in Him” (Job 13:15)

The artist’s own

All three friends pointing with the same gesture

An eagle and an owl in the border

Details

Pointing fingers

The three friends stretch out their arms at Job.

Job

Job kneels and looks up, hands open.

His wife

She kneels behind him, hands at her breast.

Eagle

An eagle in the lower border; an owl sits in the other corner.

William Blake, British, 1757–1827. The Cleveland Museum of Art (Mr. and Mrs. Charles G. Prasse Collection, 1963.303.11) · 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/).