John Gill Commentary Genesis 9

And God blessed Noah and his sons
With temporal blessings, not spiritual ones; for though some of them were blessed with such, yet not all, particularly Ham:

and said unto them, be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the
earth ;
depopulated by the flood: this is a renewal of the blessing on Adam, a power and faculty of propagating his species, which was as necessary now as then, since there were so few of the human race left in the world; and the renewal of this grant was the rather necessary, if, as has been observed, Noah and his sons were restrained from cohabiting with their wives while in the ark: but though these words are not an express command for the propagation of their species, yet more than a bare permission, at least they are a direction and instruction to it, and even carry in them a promise of fruitfulness, that they should multiply and increase, which was very needful at this time.

And the fear of you, and the dread of you, shall be upon
every beast of the earth
This is a renewal, at least in part, of the grant of dominion to Adam over all the creatures; these obeyed him cheerfully, and from love, but sinning, he in a good measure lost his power over them, they rebelled against him; but now though the charter of power over them is renewed, they do not serve man freely, but are in dread of him, and flee from him; some are more easily brought into subjection to him, and even the fiercest and wildest of them may be tamed by him; and this power over them was the more easily retrieved in all probability by Noah and his sons, from the inhabitation of the creatures with them for so long a time in the ark:

and upon every fowl of the air, and upon all that moveth upon the
earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea ;
as appears by fowls flying away, by beasts and creeping things getting off as fast as they can, and by fishes swimming away at the sight of men:

into your hand are they delivered ;
as the lords and proprietors of them, for their use and service, and particularly for what follows, see (Psalms 8:6–8) where there is an enumeration of the creatures subject to men.

Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you
That is, every beast, fowl, and fish, without exception; for though there was a difference at this time of clean and unclean creatures with respect to sacrifice, yet not with respect to food; every creature of God was good then, as it is now, and it was left to man's reason and judgment what to make use of, as would be most conducive to his health, and agreeable to his taste: and though there was a distinction afterwards made under the Levitical dispensation among the Jews, who were forbid the use of some creatures; yet they themselves say ^F11 , that all unclean beasts will be clean in the world to come, in the times of the Messiah, as they were to the sons of Noah, and refer to this text in proof of it; the only exception in the text is, that they must be living creatures which are taken, and used for food; not such as die of themselves, or are torn to pieces by wild beasts, but such as are taken alive, and killed in a proper manner:

even as the green herb have I given you all things ;
as every green herb was given for meat to Adam originally, without any exception, (Genesis 1:29Genesis 1:30) so every living creature, without exception, was given to Noah and his sons for food. Some think, and it is a general opinion, that this was a new grant, that man had no right before to eat flesh, nor did he; and it is certain it is not before expressed, but it may be included in the general grant of power and dominion over the creatures made to Adam; and since what is before observed is only a renewal of former grants, this may be considered in the same light; or otherwise the dominion over the creatures first granted to Adam will be reduced to a small matter, if he had no right nor power to kill and eat them; besides, in so large a space of time as 1600 years and upwards, the world must have been overstocked with creatures, if they were not used for such a purpose;

nor will Abel's offering the firstling and fattest of his flock appear so praiseworthy, when it made no difference with him, if he ate not of them, whether they were fat or lean; and who will deny that there were peace offerings before the flood, which the offerer always ate of? to which may be added the luxury of men before the flood, who thereby were given to impure and carnal lusts; and our Lord expressly says of the men of that age, that they were "eating and drinking", living in a voluptuous manner, which can hardly be accounted for, if they lived only on herbs, see (Luke 17:22) though it must be owned, that it was a common notion of poets and philosophers ^F12 , that men in the golden age, as they call it, did not eat flesh, but lived on herbs and fruit.

FOOTNOTES:

• F11: In Bereshit Rabba, apud Ainsworth in loc.
• F12: Pythagoras, apud Ovid. Metamorph. l. 15. Fab. 2. Porphyr. de abstinentia, l. 4. sect. 2.

But flesh with the life thereof, [which is] the blood
thereof, shall you not eat .
This is the only exception to the eating of flesh; it was not to be eaten with the blood in it, which issaid to be its life; not that the blood is of itself the life, but because it is a means of life, and thatbeing exhausted, the creature must die, and because the animal and vital spirits appear to us most vigorousin it; yea, it is the ailment and support of them, and which furnishes out the greatest quantity of them: orrather it may be rendered, "the flesh with its life in its blood" ^F13 ; while there is life in theblood, or while the creature is living; the meaning is, that a creature designed for food should be properlykilled, and its blood let out; that it should not be devoured alive, as by a beast of prey; that raw fleshshould not be eaten, as since by cannibals, and might be by riotous flesh eaters, before the flood; fornotwithstanding this law, as flesh without the blood might be eaten, so blood properly let out, and dressed,or mixed with other things, might be eaten, for aught this says to the contrary; but was not to be eaten withthe flesh, though it might separately, which was afterwards forbid by another law. The design of this was torestrain cruelty in men, and particularly to prevent the shedding of human blood, which men might be ledinto, were they suffered to tear living creatures in pieces, and feed upon their raw flesh, and the blood init.

The Targum of Jonathan is, ``but the flesh which is torn from a living beast at the time that its lifeis in it, or which is torn from a beast while it is slain, before all its breath is gone out, you shall noteat.'' And the Jewish writers generally interpret this of the flesh of a creature taken from it alive, which,they say, is the seventh precept given to the sons of Noah, over and above the six which the sons of Adamwere bound to observe, and they are these;

1. Idolatry is forbidden. 2. Blasphemy is forbidden. 3. The shedding of blood, or murder is forbidden. 4.Uncleanness, or unjust carnal copulations is forbidden. 5. Rapine or robbery is forbidden. 6. Theadministration of justice to malefactors is required. 7. The eating of any member or flesh of a creaturewhile alive ^F14 is forbidden.

Such of the Heathens who conformed to those precepts were admitted to dwell among the Israelites, and werecalled proselytes of the gate.

FOOTNOTES:

• F13: (wmd wvpnb rvb Kaw) "carnem cum anima, "seu" vita ejus, sanguine ejus", Cartwright.
• F14: Maimon. Hilchot Melachim, c. 9. sect. 1.

And surely your blood of your lives will I require
Or "for surely your blood" ^F15 ; and so is a reason of the preceding law, to teach men not to shed human blood; or though, "surely your blood", as Jarchi and Aben Ezra; though God had given them liberty to slay the creatures, and shed their blood, and eat them, yet he did not allow them to shed their own blood, or the blood of their fellow creatures; should they do this, he would surely make inquisition, and punish them for it:

at the hand of every beast will I require it ;
should a beast kill a man, or be the instrument of shedding his blood, it should be slain for it; not by means of another beast, God so ordering it, as Aben Ezra suggests, but by the hands or order of the civil magistrate; which was to be done partly to show the great regard God has to the life of man, and partly to punish men for not taking more care of their beasts, as well as to be an example to others to be more careful, and to lessen, the number of mischievous creatures:

and at the hand of man, at the hand of every man's brother will I
require the life of man ;
which may be reasonably supposed; for if it is required of a beast, and that is punished for the slaughter of a man, then much more a man himself, that is wilfully guilty of murder; and the rather, since he is by general relation a brother to the person he has murdered, which is an aggravation of his crime: or it may signify, that though he is a brother in the nearest relation, as his crime is the greater, he shall not go unpunished.

FOOTNOTES:

• F15: (kai gar) , Sept. "enim", V. L.