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.” – Genesis 9:4-7

Following God’s command and declaration comes some clarification on what is edible for man to eat. This restriction is not to eat the life blood (Lev 3:17; Acts 15:20).

The second portion of this section on blood may seem at first to stand against the first portion. Man is required to take the life of any man who takes life. Not because of a primitive justice but because man is made in God’s image. How easily this destroys the false humanist doctrine of the day that “elevates” man to a level below God’s image when they deny the value and continuance of the death penalty.

How do these two sections fit together? I find that it is not a strict “do not eat blood”. But instead that death should not be taken lightly and this is typified by not eating with the fullness of blood.

The passage closes with a final declaration of the commission of man and its imperative to Noah and his seed.