In the Mesopotamian version of the flood story, found in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the highest god Enlil is shocked to discover that a human couple, Utnapishtim and his wife, have survived the flood after being tipped off by another god. Enlil has no choice but to grudgingly grant immortality to these humans.

What a different picture is found in the Bible! The God who plans the flood-judgment is the same sovereign God who picked Noah’s family for salvation and who willingly “blessed Noah and his sons” as the pioneers of a renewed humanity (Genesis 9:1). The first few words of His blessing to Noah are the same as His original blessing in Genesis 1:28: “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.”

In Genesis 1:28, God had appointed human beings to “rule over” animals; here in Genesis 9:2, the same idea is conveyed, but from the perspective of the animal kingdom. Every living creature will instinctively recognise the authority God has given humans over them. The nature of the relationship between human and animal has also undergone a massive shift. Now, as animals are to be hunted for food, a new fear-dynamic comes into play: “The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts” and other animals (v. 2). God had given people plants for food in Genesis 1:29, but now He adds meat to the diet: “Everything that lives and moves about shall be food for you” (9:3).

The permission that God gives to eat meat comes with a prohibition: “You must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it” (v. 4). In Leviticus 17:10–14, we find an explanation for this command: a creature’s blood is a symbol of its life. By avoiding blood, the Israelite recognises that life is sacred, having been created by God.

The Jewish leaders of the early church insisted that Gentile Christians should continue obeying this command, but Paul’s later correspondence with the Corinthian Christians (1 Corinthians 8:1–6; 10:14–33) shows that he expected the church to broaden its view about diet even more: “Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, for, ‘The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it’” (10:25–26).

While God does not yet allow His people to consume animal blood in Genesis 9:4, He allows them to shed animal blood in killing them for food. But with God permitting some form of bloodshed, and following the devastating loss of human lives in the flood, did it mean that human worth had become greatly depreciated in God’s eyes?

God is quick to anticipate and correct this flawed logic. Human beings are uniquely created, and God imposes strict prohibitions on murder. In a poetic manner of expression that echoes Genesis 1:26–27, He declares that people will have to account for every human life that has been wantonly taken by another (9:5–6).

In a world where human beings created in God’s image are killed without mercy or pity, it is sobering to remember that God values each victim as an individual. He will require an accounting.