Monday, 7 December 2020

Howard David Johson, artist

 

I was flipping through some images by Christian artists on the Google search engine yesterday and stumbled upon this picture. Howard Johnson seems to specialise in all sorts of fantasy imagery, and also in depicting angels. You can find his biography on this website. This painting immediately called to mind the episode in the book of Judges, where the angel appears to Gedeon to recruit him as captain of the armies of the Israelite community, to free them from the Madianite invasion. Gedeon later became known as Ierobaal, which means 'let Baal defend his own cause,' for his opposition to the local cult of the god Ba'al, as a warrior of Adonai, God of all:

"And now an angel of the Lord came and waited by the oak-tree at Ephra, which then belonged to Joas, of the family of Abiezer. His son Gedeon had gone out to the wine-press, so as to thresh his wheat there unobserved by the Madianites, and suddenly the Lord’s angel appeared to him, and said, 'The Lord be with thee, courageous heart!' 'Ah, Sir,' replied Gedeon, 'but tell me this; if the Lord is with us, how is it that such ill fortune has overtaken us? Not for us, now, those miracles of his that were on our fathers’ lips, when they told us how He rescued them from Egypt. The Lord has forsaken us now, and lets the Madianites have their will with us.' Then the Lord looked at him, and said, 'Thou hast strength; go and set Israel free from the power of Madian. Such is the mission I have for thee.' 'What, Lord!' said he, 'I deliver Israel? Why, my clan is the poorest in all Manasses, and in all my father’s house none counts for so little as I.' 'I will be at thy side,' the Lord told him, 'and thou shalt smite Madian down as though but one man stood in thy path.' Hereupon Gedeon answered, 'As Thou lovest me, give me some proof this is Thy word that comes to me. And first, do not leave this spot till I come back here with a sacrifice to offer Thee.' 'I will await thy coming,' He said. So Gedeon went in and cooked a goat, took a bushel of flour and made unleavened bread, put the meat in a basket and the broth from the meat into a pot, and brought them all out, there beneath the oak, to make his offering. 'Take the meat and the loaves,' the angel of the Lord said, 'and lay them down on yonder rock, and pour out the broth over them.' So he obeyed, and with that the angel of the Lord held out the staff he carried, and touched meat and unleavened bread with the tip of it; whereupon fire blazed out from the rock, and all was consumed. And he looked, and the angel of the Lord was there no longer." - Judges, 6: 11-21

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