Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“But flesh with its life, that is, its blood, you shall not eat. I will surely require accounting for your life’s blood. At the hand of every animal I will require it. At the hand of man, even at the hand of every man’s brother, I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds man’s blood, his blood will be shed by man, for God made man in his own image. Be fruitful and multiply. Increase abundantly in the earth, and multiply in it.””
(Genesis 9:4-7)

Blood is serious business. I fully believe that it was NEVER meant to EVER come out of us. If Adam hadn’t sinned and the world hadn’t fallen, we would NEVER get cut or injured or anything like that. Our blood would stay in our bodies, fuelling them, and keeping everything working like it should. Blood is serious business. That’s one reason why the sacrificial system was instituted. So we would understand how serious blood is. That’s one reason why there were rules in the Law dealing with blood whether it was sacrifice, injury, or mensuration. Not to cause us issues or keep someone down, but to make us understand how SERIOUS blood was. Without an understanding of how serious blood is, we don’t understand the sacrifice of Jesus. It is His blood that makes the difference. That washes us clean. That pays for Sin and our iniquities. That transforms us. That carries the authority of God. It is THAT serious. So right from when God gave permission to eat meat, He restricted our interactions with the blood. We get authority by being restricted. That is how authority works. We can’t wield it any way we want. We have to obey the restrictions that come with it. God IMMEDIATELY restricted the interaction with blood, even before the Law, to get it into our hearts and minds. And it worked. It is one of the very few restrictions put on believers in the New Covenant (Acts 15:28-29). The eating of meat is a CONCESSION to humanity, not a REQUIREMENT. Therefore, if you are going to do it, do it the way God says you can.

God goes beyond the mere eating of meat when it comes to blood. Violence was one of the major reasons that the world was judged by the Flood (which staggers the mind when you think about how violent the world is today and it wasn’t as bad as it was then.). God makes it clear here one of the reasons for that judgment: blood is IMPORTANT. We aren’t to shed it. We aren’t to take it for granted. We aren’t to claim it, take it, or trivialize it. God requires a payment for that. This is seen clearly when King David got it on his heart to build a Temple for God. God told him it was a GREAT idea and God was touched that David loved Him so much that he wanted to build it. But David was told he could not. It was because David had shed blood (1 Chronicles 28:3). God isn’t joking about this stuff. He gives us restrictions to show us the seriousness of it. And even though we are not under the Law, we should take a moment to take it seriously too. The heart intent matters. Don’t trivialize blood. Don’t sexualize menstruation. Take it seriously. It is a LESSON to us. An important one.

God closes the section by stating again the blessing of Genesis 1:28. The implication seems to be that we cannot fulfill that blessing if we are blood-shedders. That we cannot fulfill His command if we ignore His restrictions. We cannot be FRUITFUL and MULTIPLY if we are subtracting by indescriminate killing (killing without express permission of God – capital punishment). Sine humanity is made in God’s image, an attack against that image is an attack on God.

The sage Radak writes: ‘אך בשר, even though I have permitted you all moving (living) creatures as food, you must not eat those animals while they are still alive, i.e. as long as the flesh and the blood are part of one whole you must not eat such tissue. First you have to slaughter the animal. It would be too cruel to simply cut living tissue from an animal and consume it while the animal it has been taken from is suffering pain. It appears reasonable to assume that Noach was permitted to use the animals as his food, seeing that but for his feeding these animals for a whole year in the ark they would have long since died, so that in effect they owed their lives to him. Basically, all the animals had been created to serve man’s needs, whether as beasts of burden, etc., or as food. כי בצלם אלוקים עשה את האדם, for he has been set apart from all other creatures, so much so that God made עשה, him in His image by endowing him with an intellect. This is why humans are also held responsible for killing fellow humans, as they, no less than the animals, destroy a creature that had been made in God’s own image. If man had been forbidden to kill inferior creatures for food until given special permission to do so now after the deluge, how much more sacrosanct is the life of a human being who was created in God’s image? Remember that it required special permission by God for Adam and Eve to use even the plants as food for themselves, although the plants are inferior even to the animals. Keeping all this in mind, it is clear that in order for any creature to be allowed to destroy a human being, a special directive from God ordering this was required. And likewise did God command to spill the blood of a man for his sin, as He commanded in the Torah of Moses. And that is when they are fit for the death penalty according to their sin, every sinner according to what is fitting for him, since he already destroyed his [divine] image by transgressing God’s commandments. One who transgresses does not possess a divine image or an intellect. The intellect is that which makes a slave obey his master, [seeing that he would suffer if he did not; therefore when a human being disobeys his master [God], he displays a lack of intellect, i.e., can no longer demand to be treated like a human being].’

The sage Rashi writes: ‘ואתם פרו ורבו AND YE, BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY — According to the real sense, the first time this mas said to man (Genesis 9:1) it was said as a blessing (an assurance that they would be fruitful); here it is a command (Ketubot 5a). According to the Midrashic explanation this command is mentioned here after the mention of murder in order to liken one who abstains from having children to one who sheds blood (Yevamot 63b).’

The sage Sforno writes: ‘ואתם פרו ורבו, not only must you not diminish the human population on earth, but you are commanded to increase it by being fruitful and by multiplying.’