Can Genesis 9:6 be used correctly to answer modern questions about capital punishment? The debate is of no small proportions, and the consequences both for the convicted murderer and for society are truly great.
Genesis 9:5-6 is the simplest statement commanding society to punish their fellow man for murder. However, its very simplicity and lack of development allow opponents of capital punishment to question the relevance of the passage. Missing, they claim, are all references to civilian rule, due process, exceptions, and distinctions between various degrees of murder.
Genesis 9:5–6 is part of the covenant that God established with Noah after the flood. In this pact were involved the fear of animals to people, the permission to eat meat that does not contain the vital blood and the delegation of the death penalty for murder in the hands of men and women. But he was involved in more than this, and this tends to show the enduring nature of the provisions of this covenant. The seasons were instituted as part of the enduring natural order (Genesis 8:22), the rainbow would serve as a continual promise that the earth would not be flooded again (Genesis 9:13), and the image of God provided the rationale for demanding extreme punishment (Genesis 9:6). Therefore, the covenant established with Noah implies that he represents “every living creature” (Genesis 6: 18-19; 9: 10-11, 12, 15-17).
The text has a clear statement on capital punishment. God requires a “reckoning” of both the person and the beast that shed someone’s blood. But given that both are held responsible, even though the beasts cannot make moral discriminations or act intentionally, how can capital punishment advocates use this text to solve the problem?
It could be argued that Exodus 21:28-36 provides the principle of animal responsibility, while Mosaic law makes a distinction between manslaughter and murder, or between first, second, and third degree murder. However, opponents would argue that the Mosaic law was made between God and Israel, while the Noahide covenant was between God and every living creature.
This distinction, however, is very curious, because it makes a sharper dichotomy between law and grace than the Scriptures intend. For even when the civil code of the Mosaic law demonstrates a particularistic and distinctive cultural relevance, which is limited to the period for which they were written, these same laws have behind them eternal principles as enduring as the character of God. That is the point made so clearly by the recent discovery that the Ten Commandments, with their moral code, set the agenda for both the Covenant Code of Exodus 21-23 and the specifications of Deuteronomy 6-26. I have argued this case in some detail in Toward Old Testament Ethics (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1983).
But let us settle the matter on the textual basis of Genesis 9:6 itself. First, it is clear that the text is giving us a command and not just a suggestion or permission. Verse 5 says that God exacts a punishment: “I will call to account for the life of his neighbor.” Furthermore, the reason given for this action is one that remains in force as long as men and women are made in the image of God.
This issue of the image of God brings us to the heart of the matter: “for in the image of God God made man”. The word for cannot be translated “although” here, as in Genesis 8:21 or Joshua 17:13, as if the fact that a person was made in God’s image was not a bar to the death sentence. The clearest reading is that the murderer had to suffer for his actions because it was a fundamental denial of the image of God in the damaged individual. The person who destroyed another being created in the image of God, in fact, violated God himself; so sacred and so permanent was the value and worth that God had invested in the murdered victim.
Some interpreters connect the causal conjunction not with the shedding of blood, but with everything that preceded it: verses 1, 2, and 7. For these reasons, the reason given in the last part of verse 6 is instead the reason by which God saved a remnant. of the human race through Noah and why he protects people from the threats of wild animals.
But all this is too distantly related. Furthermore, it is based on the alleged excuse that verse 6 has a peculiar (chiastic) structure. This seems more like a special plea than solid exegesis. In general, the closest expression is taken when searching for the expression or word that the for or because clause modifies. More pointers are needed to show that a chiastic word order is unusual in this situation. This happens in poetry regularly.
Others oppose transferring this demand for capital punishment in Genesis 9:6 to the law books as a universally binding law without including Genesis 9:4-5: “You must not eat meat that still has its life blood” and “I I will require an accounting of each animal.” This can be partially answered by acknowledging that the New Testament forbids Gentiles from eating blood or things that have not been properly bled (Acts 15:20, 29; compare Leviticus 3:17; 17:14; Deut 12:16, 23). . . And Exodus 21:28–36 enforces the principle of animal responsibility.
Likewise, it is too much to claim that “the shedding of blood” should be taken simply as a metaphor for death. More often than not, the concept of dumping was a physical act; its metaphorical uses were reserved for such ideas as the pouring out of God’s wrath or the pouring out of the heart or soul. But when the blood was shed violently, that spillage was said to have polluted the land (Numbers 35:33; 2 Kings 24:4; Ezekiel 22:3-4). It is this shedding of blood that constitutes the most frequent use of this verb. It is hardly a metaphorical use. No image of violent death could be more graphically described.
Later in the sixth commandment, one word is chosen to represent first-degree murder out of the seven possible Hebrew verbs for killing. Rāṣaḥ restricted himself to deliberate and premeditated murder (Ps 94:6; Prov 22:13; Is 1:21; Jer 7:9; Hos 4:2; 6:9). This verb was not used for killing beasts for food (Gen 9:3), defending in a night attack (Ex 22:2), accidental killing (Dt 19:5), or even murder (Num 35:16, 25). What unites murder with manslaughter is that both incur blood guilt and both pollute the earth. What differentiates the two is that no substitute is allowed for the death that comes at the hand of a murderer (that is, one who premeditates his act), but the text implies that for each of the sixteen to twenty the death penalty crimes in the Old Testament are allowed a substitute (Num. 35:31). It is with this concept that bloodshed seems to be related.
Nowhere does the text introduce the political State as the one that demands that life from the murderer. While this is true, it is just another evidence of the phenomenon of progressive revelation. No passage provides all the details. Even the Romans 13 statement on the state does not include the warning raised in Acts 4:19-20 that circumscribes the authority of the state over a Christian when obeying human government would preclude obeying God.
Jesus himself seems to have accepted the principle of capital punishment when he reminded Pilate that rule was divinely conferred (John 19:11). The same position is supported elsewhere in the New Testament by Romans 13:4 and Acts 25:11. However, the main argument for capital punishment is still based on the image of God argument given in Genesis 9:6. This can hardly be overlooked by anyone who takes the Scriptures seriously.
But if a society persists in refusing to take the lives of those who have been conclusively shown to have deliberately and violently taken the lives of others, then that society will be under the judgment of God and the value, the value, the dignity and respect of people in that society and nation will. decrease accordingly. It is self-defeating to stand up for civil and women’s rights on the one hand and to turn and deny them to the one hit by a deadly blow on the other.
Of course, this principle must be applied with such reluctance that when there is a “reasonable doubt”, we err on the side of mercy and waive the death penalty. In an imperfect judicial system, not all defendants will be treated equally or fairly because economic status, social standing, race, or political and legal connections will place some “above the law.” However, we will note that such deception does not escape God’s attention, nor does it change his laws. It only becomes another divine accusation against that society that dares to unequally exercise the demand for justice ordained by God. That nation will be judged for such an arrogant attitude toward God’s mission.
See also the commentary on Exodus 20:13; Leviticus 20:1–7; numbers 35:21.