The Spiller of Blood (Gen 9:6)
The Flood
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6 Who spills the blood of man שֹׁפֵךְ֙ דַּ֣ם הָֽאָדָ֔ם
By man his blood shall be spilled. בָּֽאָדָ֖ם דָּמ֣וֹ יִשָּׁפֵ֑ךְ
When I first started writing this column, in September 2022, I recorded the biblical text so readers could click and listen. After a few “days” (biblically speaking), I stopped doing that, since every chapter of the Bible has been recorded in Hebrew at least twice; find information about accessing them here.
At the moment I don’t really have a setup that makes recording easy. No matter. You should listen to the phrase at the top of this post, which you can do here (starting at 0:56) and here (starting at at 0:40). What you will hear is this:
shofeikh dam ha-adam
ba-adam damo yishafeikh
And now you understand why I am transliterating not a word here or there but this entire half-verse, something I ordinarily never do. Biblical “originalists” (if there are any) should realize that this is not (solely) a legal statement but one couched in the language of poetry.
Yes, it is even chiastic. I always told my students not to bother saying that something was chiastic unless they could give me a good reason why it mattered. Breaking my rule here; sue me. I could make something up about why this phrase goes 3‑2‑1‑1‑2‑3 but I will not try to do that. It is short and sweet, powerful and memorable. Our author had been taught it in school, or had read it in some other well-known literary work, or it was simply something that everyone learned at their mother’s knee, like “too hot … too cold … juuuust right.”
Lawyers, do not try to get your client off because he poisoned the victim and no blood was spilled. I repeat: This is not a legal clause but an esthetic intensification of what we’ve been reading up until now. Let’s review:
Humans can now kill animals and eat their flesh.
They can not eat the animals’ blood, which is the actual life.
Animals can not kill humans; God will demand satisfaction if they do.
God will demand satisfaction from humans who kill other humans.
It’s clear that “demanding satisfaction” is extremely important, since the verb דרשׁ (appearing here for the first time in the Bible) occurs three times in v. 5. The implication is that the killer, animal or man, must die. That, at least, is what we would think from the well-known (to us) phrase in the Covenant Code:
Exod 21:23 נֶ֖פֶשׁ תַּ֥חַת נָֽפֶשׁ néfesh táḥat náfesh life for life
The Covenant Code (roughly Exodus 21–23) is most certainly written in legal language, some of it adapted from the Code of Hammurabi. This phrase, however, is repeated once more in the Holiness Code, legal-sounding language that is really devoted to explaining how the Israelites are to “be holy, for I, YHWH your God, am holy” (Lev 19:2). We’ve been following the connections between Deuteronomy, the Holiness Code, and our passage, and the repetition in the Holiness Code of néfesh táḥat náfesh is in precisely the context that we’re currently reading in Genesis 9:
Lev 24:17 If anyone kills any human being, he shall be put to death. 18 One who kills a beast shall make restitution for it: life for life [נֶ֖פֶשׁ תַּ֥חַת נָֽפֶשׁ].
Again, precisely how that is supposed to happen is not specified. We can guess that “life for life” means you must give the owner a living animal to replace the no-longer living one he used to have. But what if you killed your own animal? Etc., etc., etc. The devil (pardon me for mentioning him) is in the details.
In the midst of a 1500-word comment on Lev 24:18 — I repeat, 1500 words — Jacob Milgrom in his Anchor Bible commentary says:
In admitted desperation, I can propose only a radical solution. The phrase nepeš taḥat nepeš indeed does not belong here … It must have fallen into this verse accidentally. But from where?
Baruch Levine, in a much briefer note for the JPS Torah Commentary, notes:
Biblical criminal law consistently differentiates between human life and the life of animals.
Our passage, in the aftermath of a Flood that has destroyed all life on Earth except for what was preserved inside the sealed box built to survive it, is trying to maintain a very careful balance:
All life is equally precious.
Even a life necessarily taken must be treated with respect.
Some lives are more equally precious than others.
Humans may kill animals but animals may not kill humans.
Animals apparently can kill and eat other animals. The text doesn’t bother to say so, because that’s not what this passage is about. If I understand correctly, it is about clarifying precisely what דרשׁ d‑r‑sh ‘demand satisfaction’ means in this context. That seems to mean treating blood — the visible carrier of nefesh in a living being, as indeed it is what carries the oxygen we breathe throughout the body — with the utmost respect.
V. 3 gave humans the right to kill animals in order to eat them. Now, remarkably, v. 6 gives humans the right, and indeed the obligation, to kill other humans. Stop the presses!
Yes, God’s way of “demanding satisfaction” when a human being kills another human being is to have other human beings kill the killer. At what point does the cycle of killing stop? If the one who spills blood has his own blood spilled, there would seem to be room for an infinite number of sequels. Think about it, filmmakers!
But our verse is not legal advice. It is poetry, rhetoric. We’ll talk more about it next time; right now, let’s just listen to it once more:
שֹׁפֵךְ֙ דַּ֣ם הָֽאָדָ֔ם shofeikh dam ha-adam Who spills the blood of man
בָּֽאָדָ֖ם דָּמ֣וֹ יִשָּׁפֵ֑ך ba-adam damo yishafeikh By man his blood shall be spilled.