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© Myrtice West/Collection of Antonia Alcala, Alexandria, VA/Photo, Richard Nowitz

Apocalypse now. “Prophesy from Ezekiel Ch 38, what occurred in our 50 years 1941 to 1995,” reads the heading of this complex road map of verses and images, the only painting in which Myrtice West uses historical events to portray a Bible book’s prophecy. Truman, MacArthur, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, Hitler and Martin Luther King, Jr., are among the world figures shown in West’s interpretation, where the United States, bottom left, is portrayed as God’s stronghold, while the Soviet Union, bottom right, is depicted as God and Israel’s enemy, Magog. The lines coming out of God’s hands lead to hooks in the jaws of the world leaders, reflecting God’s words in Ezekiel 38:4—“I am against you, O Gog [ruler of Magog]…I will turn you around and put hooks in your jaws.”