Genesis 9:3-5 "Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you..."

Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. Only, you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. For your own lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning: from every animal I will require it and from human beings, each one for the blood of another, I will require a reckoning for human life. (Genesis 9:3-5)

Comment:

This is a part of the command given Noah and his family as they leave the ark after the Great Flood. It provides a dietary instruction that observant Jews maintain to this day. Metaphysically, it represents an expansion of the relationship between the human and the divine. The original instructions to Adam and Eve were more limiting. Now that mankind is ready to take further ownership of the human experience, it is given greater dominion over other forms of life. But humans are not given dominion over life itself, which, to the people of that time, was believed to be found in blood. Every being—including but not limited to people—has its own “lifeblood,” its own relationship to the divine, its own reason for living in physical form. Every expression of life is to be honored. The physical form may be eaten as food, but the blood, the life force, must be reserved for God, its innate divinity honored.

Blessings!

Rev. Ed