Mathers assigns the figure to danger by water and to the cessation of rain or tempests during a lunar invocation.
- Planetary group
- ☽ Moon
- Mathers figure
- 50
- Printed plate
- XII
- Text anchor
- Psalm 56:11
Mathers assigns silver and silver to this planetary group. The crop documents his printed linework; it does not reproduce the color or material described elsewhere in the edition.
What Mathers’s caption claims
Mathers assigns the figure to danger by water and to the cessation of rain or tempests during a lunar invocation.
Within the Moon collection, this places figure 50 among themes of opening, water, night journeys, herbs and stones, dreams, and rain.
Inscription, names, and script
Psalm 56:11: In Elohim have I put my trust; I will not fear what man can do unto me.
A pointing hand directs attention toward El and the angel Abariel.
How the diagram is organized
The visible core is a naturalistic hand and pointing finger. Around it, the named pair lies directly in the gesture’s path. At the edge, the trust verse encloses the gesture.
Mathers plate and witness differences
The plate uses a hand as a reading instruction: image directs the eye toward text. Mathers identifies Abariel, but the verse itself speaks generally of trust rather than water, so the weather setting comes from the prose caption.
Plate XII is an artifact of Mathers’s 1889 arrangement. His preface and final note say that he compared differing manuscripts and restored difficult Hebrew and magical characters. Sloane 2731 and Lansdowne 1203 remain distinct manuscript objects; this printed crop should not stand in for either one.
WORKED EXAMPLE
A diagram reading of figure 50
Follow the finger before reading around the circle. The gesture prioritizes El and Abariel; only afterward does the border widen the theme to trust. Water and storm are absent from the drawing, showing how much meaning the caption contributes.
View this figure in sequence
The Moon collection contains 6 figures, numbered 49–54 in the 1889 edition.