NOTES for Gen 9:1-7

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.