Genesis 9:1-7 ESV
And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered.
Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.
But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.
And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.
“Whoever sheds the blood of man,
by man shall his blood be shed,
for God made man in his own image.
And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.”
Echoes of the Garden are in these words spoken to Noah: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." Here is a new beginning with new ground rules.
Why does God now give the flesh of every moving thing that lives in addition to the green plants as food for man? It is not explained here in these verses. The fear and dread of man would now characterize the world experienced by those animals.
The life of a man resides in his blood. This is the case for all men after the fall. When the blood of Jesus is spilled His mortal life is given for all mankind. He makes it possible for us to trade the life contained in tainted blood for His life made available in the Spirit. He has given His flesh and blood as bread and drink from heaven. The man that eats and drinks from His body finds his life resides in God. That man becomes a truer image of God.
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