MPV Commentary

Covenant.

1. God blessed Noah and reestablished the original law of nature that was announced to Adam. This law consisted of several parts, including the transmission of life.

Be fruitful and multiply - The first part of this covenant is a repetition of the original blessing given to Adam (Genesis 1:28). It emphasizes the importance of human reproduction and the continuation of life on earth.

2. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast, every bird, and everything that moves along the ground. This establishes man's dominion over inferior animals, but it is now based on terror rather than love and kindness. As a result, all stronger and weaker animals will avoid human haunts except those employed in service to humans.

3. Every moving thing that lives shall be meat for you - The third part of this covenant concerns the means of sustaining life. For the first time, humans are allowed to use animal food as a source of nutrition. However, there is one restriction attached to this grant.

4. But flesh with its life, which is its blood, you shall not eat - This prohibition was intended to prevent excesses of cannibal ferocity in eating flesh from living animals, to which men were liable in earlier ages of the world.

5. I will require a reckoning for the blood of your lives - The fourth part of this covenant establishes a new power for protecting life: the institution of the civil magistrate (Romans 13:4). This official authority is empowered to repress violence and crime, which had not previously existed in patriarchal society.

6. Whoever sheds human blood by man shall be shed - Man was created in God's image (Genesis 1:27), even though this image has been injured by the fall. As a result, a high value is attached to every human life, and taking it involves an awful criminality.