The Work
Gustave Doré's engraving of the angel staying the plague over Jerusalem appeared in La Sainte Bible (1866). The composition depicts the angel of God with drawn sword poised over Jerusalem as David prostrates himself in repentance below, the divine messenger standing between the destructive plague and the city as God relents of the punishment.
Biblical Source
2 Samuel 24:16 - "When the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the LORD relented concerning the disaster and said to the angel who was afflicting the people, 'Enough! Withdraw your hand'" - and 1 Chronicles 21:15 describe the moment when divine judgment is checked by divine mercy, the sword of punishment stayed by God's own decision to relent. David's sin was the pride of counting his fighting men - a census that was understood as trusting in human military power rather than in God's protection.
The theological complexity of the passage - God's anger, David's repentance, the angel's intervention, God's relenting - makes it one of the most psychologically nuanced accounts of the interaction between divine justice and divine mercy in the Hebrew Bible. Doré captures this complexity in a single composition that presents simultaneously the raised sword of judgment and the arrested action of mercy.
Artist and Iconography
See general Doré entry. The plate's composition emphasizes the figure of the halted angel: wings spread, sword raised but not descending, the whole figure poised between action and restraint. Below, David's prostrate figure completes the theological statement - human repentance and divine relenting are placed in the same visual field, the interaction between them constituting the image's meaning.