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NOTES for Gen 9:1-7

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1 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.
3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
5 And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man.
6 Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.
7 And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.
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What is the connection, one wonders, between humanity being created in God’s image and the principle of ‘blood for blood’? And does this not justify, for example, blood vengeance or the death penalty for murderers? The Torah, for instance, prescribes precisely the death penalty as punishment for intentional murder, and it also permits blood vengeance, albeit reluctantly, as an extreme but undesirable measure. What, then, is the point? Is it that a person’s life—the ‘soul’—is bound up with blood? Of course, this was not always so. When God created the human being, He breathed into his nostrils, as the Hebrew text puts it, the breath of life, and the human being came to life, becoming a ‘living soul.’ Before the Fall, it appears, human life was bound up with the breath of God. After the Fall, however, human beings became like other animals: their life was now bound up not with a spiritual principle, not with God’s breath of life, but with a natural principle, with blood. Yet God’s image in the human being was still preserved, though it had grown dim; otherwise Noah’s righteousness would have been impossible! If so, then human blood is no less precious in God’s eyes than the breath of life. Of course, ‘blood for blood’ is not the best way to punish bloodshed, which it cannot entirely prevent even when applied consistently and with absolute justice. Yet this kind of punishment is not ordained by God either; it is predetermined by fallen human nature, which knows no other way to punish and stop a murderer. ‘Blood for blood’ is not humanity’s finest invention, but it is still better than complete impunity. God allows human beings to choose the lesser of two evils, understanding that in their present state they cannot renounce evil altogether.

Other notes

 
For Gen 9:1-29
1 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.
3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
5 And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man.
6 Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.
7 And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.
8 And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying,
9 And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you;
10 And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.
11 And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.
12 And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:
13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.
14 And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:
15 And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.
16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.
17 And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.
18 And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan.
19 These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread.
20 And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:
21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.
22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.
23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.
24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.
25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
26 And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
27 God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
28 And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years.
29 And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years: and he died.
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As the sign of the covenant, such a bright and radiant phenomenon as the rainbow is chosen. A rainbow appears after rain, when everything around has been washed by water, leaves and grass sparkle...  Read more

As the sign of the covenant, such a bright and radiant phenomenon as the rainbow is chosen. A rainbow appears after rain, when everything around has been washed by water, and leaves and grass sparkle... The rainbow symbolizes the cleansing action of God's mercy. The Lord looked again at the world He had created and perhaps remembered again that all creation was very good. God promises to protect the earth from a flood. He is hardly counting on Noah's descendants being much more righteous than the generation that perished in the flood. Rather, He decides to show them greater mercy.

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For Gen 9:1-29
1 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.
3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
5 And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man.
6 Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.
7 And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.
8 And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying,
9 And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you;
10 And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.
11 And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.
12 And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:
13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.
14 And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:
15 And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.
16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.
17 And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.
18 And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan.
19 These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread.
20 And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:
21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.
22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.
23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.
24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.
25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
26 And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
27 God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
28 And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years.
29 And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years: and he died.
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The covenant with Noah was marked by another fairly important innovation: from then on, human beings were allowed to eat meat. People may, of course, have eaten it before, but now it was blessed by God...  Read more

The covenant with Noah was marked by another fairly important innovation: from then on, human beings were allowed to eat meat. People may, of course, have eaten it before, but now it was blessed by God. True, there was one reservation: meat could be eaten, but without blood, because the soul is in the blood. What is meant here?

In the Bible, the soul is not a structure, not something static; it is rather a process, a dynamic, a flow of life, what a modern philosopher would most likely call existence. According to the biblical witness, animals have the same kind of soul, and for them it is in the blood.

This is understandable: blood is the substance of life, its symbol, at least when we are speaking about natural life. Life belongs to God; no human being can appropriate it. It is not meat, which is now given to humanity for food just as grain and fruit were given for food at creation. Meat is for the human being; life, of which that meat had been the vessel, is for God. The matter is even more interesting, and sadder, with human beings: their soul, the flow of their life, is now also bound to blood.

Before the fall, it was bound to that "breath of life" which God gave the human being at creation, and this was the uniqueness of the human being: human life, the very process of human existence, was determined by God directly through the "breath of life." Now everything has changed: human life has moved into the blood, as in any animal. In a certain sense, the human being has himself become an animal; his existence is now determined not by God, not by the "breath of life," but by nature, by the natural processes that take place in his body.

Accordingly, direct guidance of human life by God is now only something to dream of: at the fall, human bodily existence changed so that a human being could live in a semi-autonomous mode, like all the animals whom he has now come to resemble. Now, in order to come even a little closer to the former state before the fall, a person has to make an effort so that God may once again begin to determine his life through the "breath of life," which after the fall a person at times barely notices within himself and almost forgets.

The human being remained a spiritual-natural creature, but if before the fall his natural state was spiritual life, so that the spirit within him determined the life and activity of his nature, now his natural state has become a natural one, so that nature now determines the limits of the existence and manifestation of his spirit. These are the fruits of the fall, with which even a righteous person such as Noah has to make peace.

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