Divine Vision

Divine Vision Commentary by Paul Joyce Bible Passage William Blake was an English poet and engraver, and a key figure of the Romantic Age. The sometimes hyperbolic critic Jonathan Jones even claims that Blake is ‘far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced’ (Jones 2005). Biblical scholar Christopher Rowland writes ‘Blake deserves to be considered as one of the foremost English biblical interpreters, and a significant voice in the history of biblical interpretation’ (Rowland 2010: xii). A Christian who was hostile to most forms of organised religion, Blake was influenced by the Swedish polymath and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg; he himself is noted for the sublime and yet grounded visionary aspects of his work. His fascination with Ezekiel is seen elsewhere too, for example in his poetic work The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, where he dines with the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel. The full title of the picture is The Whirlwind: Ezekiel’s Vision of the Cherubim and Eyed Wheels. In referring here to the ‘living creatures’ as ‘cherubim’, Blake echoes Ezekiel 10. The splendid phrase ‘Eyed Wheels’ in the title evokes both Ezekiel’s captivating account and also Blake’s own striking portrayal. The eyes indicate that God is all-seeing, while the wheels are symbolic of mobility, the deity conveyed as though by some throne-chariot to appear with the exiles. Blake enters into Ezekiel’s vision of the God of Israel manifested far away from the homeland, which coheres with his own sense of theophanies being possible in any place (as reflected in his account of seeing a tree filled with angels while walking on Peckham Rye as a child). Blake distinctively chooses to present the faces of all the ‘living creatures’ as human. This refers to different facets of the human person (the ‘Four Zoas’, as he calls them elsewhere): the body; reason; emotions; and imagination—in fact diverse aspects of the divine character in whose image humans are created. The daring portrayal of the deity that crowns the picture is explicitly anthropomorphic, and the whole image highlights not only the complexity of the human person, but crucially the intimate interconnection between humanity and divinity. As Rowland puts it: ‘For Blake that divine vision is the fullness of humanity revealed and enjoyed’ (Rowland 2007: 30–31; 2010: 141–42). References Jones, Jonathan. 2005. ‘Blake’s Heaven, 25 April 2005’, www.theguardian.com [accessed 19 March 2026] Rowland, Christopher C. 2007. Wheels Within Wheels: William Blake and the Ezekiel’s Merkabah in Text and Image (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press) _______. 2010. Blake and the Bible (New Haven: Yale University Press)