Biblical Essays
A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF BLOODSHED IN BIBLE AND TALMUD
(Genesis 9:6)
“Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image” (Genesis 9:6RSV).1Nowhere in the Bible is the requirement of the death penalty more forcefully stated. Nowhere in the Bible is the principle of “measure for measure” more clearly enunciated. Therefore it is logical and profitable to analyze the broad ramifications of Gen. 9:62 for ethical and judicial principles with respect to this kind of punishment.
I. Ethical Considerations
The ethical considerations for deterrent to murder center around the Biblical description of the relationship of God to man. Man is made in the image of God (Gen. 1:27). The life with which man was endowed by God (2:7) was identified with man’s blood (Lev. 17:14). Therefore the phrase “sheds the blood of man” (Gen. 9:6) is equivalent to “takes the life of man.” And since life is identified as the gift of God, the shedding of man’s blood – that is, the taking of man’s life – is considered not only an irreparable injustice against man but also an outrage against God Himself.3
II. Universal Application
It is not surprising, then, to note that the Biblical declaration of retribution against the murderer is of universal application. The death penalty for murder was not enunciated merely because murder is a horrible social crime, although no doubt that would have been sufficient reason, but because murder is seen as striking at the very likeness of God with which man is stamped. Thus the pre-Mosaic pronouncement of Gen. 9:6 applied to all. The outraged reaction of God against the first murder was very personal: “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. And now you are Cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand” (4:10-11). The anger of God against the shedder of blood is pictured as a timeless, universal, personal response on His part. Just as the Biblical narrative describes His outrage at murder before the flood, so after the flood the account of His personal announcement to all men is given: “Surely I will require your lifeblood; from every beast I will require it. And from every man, from every man’s brother I will require the life of man” (9:5 NASB). Milgrom presents the thesis that even the Biblical legislation concerning dietary practices “Rests on foundations that are essentially ethical, and ethical in the highest sense, [and] that the dietary laws are anchored in an ethical foundation was not unknown to the rabbis of the Talmudic age. . . . The fathers of Judaism felt so keenly about the ethical primacy of the dietary system that they enjoined one of its tenets, the blood prohibition, upon all mankind. . . . The Hebrew Bible, according to its own testimony, was intended for Israel alone – even the Ten Commandments. Only one biblical statute, the blood prohibition, is commanded to all men.”4
III. Judicial Emphasis in the Torah
It is therefore to be expected that in the Torah judicial emphasis be placed upon matters related to the shedding of blood. Neither is it surprising that the people took these laws seriously. For example, in view of the expiatory nature of blood in the sacrificial system under which they lived the Israelites could readily accept the divine imperative for the man’s blood to be shed in expiation who had himself polluted the land by shedding his fellow man’s blood: “You shall not thus pollute the land in which you live; for blood pollutes the land, and no expiation can be made for the land, for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of him who shed it” (Num. 35:33).5
Basically the judicial sanctions against the one guilty of bloodshed were ultimately viewed as expressions of the divine wrath and therefore were incurred as consequences for sin. This punishment for the sin of bloodshed was understood to be of high priority in the eyes of God: “For behold, the Lord is coming forth out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, and the earth will disclose the blood shed upon her, and will no more cover her slain” (Is. 26:21).
IV. Consequences of Bloodshed
The intricate system of various punishments for different kinds of bloodshed was very much a part of the life of Israel in Biblical times. If someone took another person’s life deliberately, the slayer was to be put to death (Gen 9:6). If man failed to carry out his responsibilities, God gave His assurance that He would personally require the lifeblood of the guilty (9:6). The assurance that the murderer would eventually be punished – if not by man under God’s law, then by divine wrath – is seen in the type of language used to describe God’s action where murder was concerned. Examples: “And you shall strike down the house of Ahab your master, that I may avenge on Jezebel the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the Lord” (2 Kgs. 9:7). “And the Lord said to him, ‘Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel” (Hos 1:4).6
“Through the crime of bloodshed the Temple was destroyed and the Shechinah departed from Israel, as it is written, “So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are; for blood, it polluteth the land. . . . And thou shalt not defile the land which ye inhabit, in the midst of which I dwell” (Num. 35:33-34). Hence, if ye do defile it, ye will not inhabit it and I will not dwell in its midst.”7
So the shedding of blood was not only viewed in the Bible as the cause of God’s bringing down of dynasties. It was also viewed by the later rabbis as the reason for the destruction of the temple.
Bloodshed was also seen by the sages as a partial reason for the exile: “Exile comes to the world for idolatry, for incest and for bloodshed, and for [transgressing the commandment of] the [year of the] release of the land.”8
The homeowner was warned against becoming the cause of death on his premises at the risk of incurring guilt: “When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof, that you may not bring the guilt of blood upon your house, if any one fall from it” (Deut 22:8).9 Examples are numerous in the Bible as to what constituted a potential or actual demand under law that one pays the price of his own blood for his deed.
V. Blood Avenger
Another significant feature of Jewish law was the provision for the blood avenger. In view of what has been said earlier in connection with the ethical background and the expiatory nature of sacrificial blood for the sins of the people and of man’s blood for the blood he has shed, it is obviously no mere coincidence that the Hebrew term for “blood avenger” (go'el haddām) is applied with equal validity to one who acted as redeemer.10 Examples: “The blood avenger himself shall put the murderer to death; he shall put him to death when he meets him” (Num. 35:19 NASB). “And now it is true that I am a near kinsman, yet there is a kinsman nearer than I” (Ruth 3:12; “kinsman” = go'el).
1. Early activity of the go'el haddām. Theoretically there was a sense in which the blood avenger was committing a redemptive act rather than a vengeful act when he put the murderer to death. The murderer had polluted the land, and no expiation could be made for the land on account of the blood that had been shed on it except the blood of the murderer (Num. 35:33). Therefore the act of the avenger was, from the Biblical point of view, primarily expiatory in essence while admittedly often vindictive in practice.
It is a fact that in early times the act of outright simple vengeance in taking life as a satisfaction for a grievance was common practice. In describing Bedouin life among the early Arab clans Hitti states: “Blood, according to the primitive law of the desert, calls for blood; no chastisement is recognized other than that of vengeance. The nearest of kin is supposed to assume primary responsibility. A blood feud may last forty years. . . . In all the ayyam al-Arab, those intertribal battles of pre-Islamic days, the chronicles emphasize the blood feud motif.”
