CREATION OF ADAM

Psalms 50:1 God, Elohim-Jehovah, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof. [Darby Bible Translation]
Psalms 50:1 The mighty God, even the LORD, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof. [KJV]

Elohim Creating Adam Large Color Prints 1795



If birth is an agonising experience, so much more so is creation. The creator and the created express in their faces the trauma and fears they feel. The Elohim, as a winged angel, reaches to the earth for the creative material with his left hand and to the head of the new being with his right. Adam rests upon the earth and dips his left hand into the waters. The worm of mortality or the serpent of fallenness coils itself around his body. Instead of a foot Adam has a cloven hoof which marks him as unclean. The long and difficult process which man must traverse to return to his maker is indicated in this composition of God and man dividing.  

The creation which we read about in Genesis was not the beginning for Blake. The third of the Eyes of God, the Elohim, created the world and established Adam in the garden of Eden. 

Jerusalem,Plate 55, (E 205)
"And they Elected Seven, calld the Seven Eyes of God;
Lucifer, Molech, Elohim, Shaddai, Pahad, Jehovah, Jesus."

In Genesis Chapter 2, is written:
[4] These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,
[5] And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
[6] But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
[7] And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
[8] And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

The word translated God in this Biblical account of creation is Elohim and not Jehovah. Blake follows that use of that name for God the creator:

Jerusalem, Plate 27, (E 171)
"Albion was the Parent of the Druids; & in his Chaotic State of
Sleep Satan & Adam & the whole World was Created by the Elohim."

Four Zoas, Page 107, (E 381)
"Lucifer refusd to die for Satan & in pride he forsook his charge
Then they sent Molech Molech was impatient They sent
Molech impatient They Sent Elohim who created Adam

To die for Satan Adam refusd but was compelld to die
By Satans arts."

Here Los is identified with the Elohim in creating Adam as the limit of contraction:

Jerusalem, Plate 73, (E 228)
"Where Luvahs World of Opakeness grew to a period: It
Became a Limit, a Rocky hardness without form & void
Accumulating without end: here Los. who is of the Elohim
Opens the Furnaces of affliction in the Emanation
Fixing The Sexual into an ever-prolific Generation
Naming the Limit of Opakeness Satan & the Limit of Contraction
Adam, who is Peleg & Joktan: & Esau & Jacob: & Saul & David"

Blake uses the term Elohim Jehovah which occurs only once in the Bible (Psalms 50) to represent the consolidation of divine characteristics which was revealed through Jesus.

Ghost of Abel, Plate 2, (E 272)
"The Elohim of the Heathen Swore Vengeance for Sin! Then Thou stoodst
Forth O Elohim Jehovah! in the midst of the darkness of the Oath! All Clothed
In Thy Covenant of the Forgiveness of Sins: Death O Holy! Is this Brotherhood
The Elohim saw their Oath Eternal Fire; they rolled apart trembling over The
Mercy Seat: each in his station fixt in the Firmament by Peace Brotherhood and Love."

Blake also combines the names Jehovah and Elohim, the Angel of the Divine Presence, and the 'I Am' who spoke to Moses, in this passage from Vision of the Last Judgment:  

Vision of Last Judgment, (E 559)
"The Aged Figure with Wings having a writing tablet & taking
account of the numbers who arise is That Angel of the Divine
Presence mentiond in Exodus XIVc 19v & in other Places this Angel
is frequently calld by the Name of Jehovah Elohim The I am of the
Oaks of Albion"

Exodus 14
[19] And the angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them
.