At the end of the 1700s, English poet and artist William Blake created a print, ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ depicting the proud king brought low and crawling about like a wild animal. You can see one of these prints in the Tate Gallery, London.   

The artist has captured well the bird-claw nails, the wild beard, but it is the eyes that so express the king’s state. They are depicted as wall-eyed, at the same time seeing his own condition and his surrounds and despairing.  

It is that realisation of our own desperate state that brings us to repentance. In the rocky gloom that Blake places Nebuchadnezzar, it would seem that all is lost. But if we look at the shadows carefully, we will see that the light is coming from above, shining down on the king. Like him, we just have to raise our eyes, stop looking at ourselves, or our circumstances, and turn to Heaven.  

Nicole Davenport