Genesis 9:5-6

9:5 For your lifeblood ¹  I will surely exact punishment, ²  from ³  every living creature I will exact punishment. From each person ⁴  I will exact punishment for the life of the individual ⁵  since the man was his relative. ⁶ 

9:6 “Whoever sheds human blood, ⁷ 

by other humans ⁸ 

must his blood be shed;

for in God’s image ⁹ 

God ¹⁰  has made humankind.”

Numbers 35:33

35:33 “You must not pollute the land where you live, for blood defiles the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed there, except by the blood of the person who shed it.

Deuteronomy 19:12-13

19:12 The elders of his own city must send for him and remove him from there to deliver him over to the blood avenger ¹¹  to die. 19:13 You must not pity him, but purge out the blood of the innocent ¹²  from Israel, so that it may go well with you.

Deuteronomy 21:8-9

21:8 Do not blame ¹³  your people Israel whom you redeemed, O Lord, and do not hold them accountable for the bloodshed of an innocent person.” ¹⁴  Then atonement will be made for the bloodshed. 21:9 In this manner you will purge out the guilt of innocent blood from among you, for you must do what is right before ¹⁵  the Lord.

Deuteronomy 21:2

21:2 your elders and judges must go out and measure how far it is to the cities in the vicinity of the corpse. ¹⁶ 

Deuteronomy 9:26

9:26 I prayed to him: ¹⁷  O, Lord God, ¹⁸  do not destroy your people, your valued property ¹⁹  that you have powerfully redeemed, ²⁰  whom you brought out of Egypt by your strength. ²¹ 

Proverbs 28:17

28:17 The one who is tormented ²²  by the murder ²³  of another will flee to the pit; ²⁴ 

let no one support him.

Acts 28:4

28:4 When the local people ²⁵  saw the creature hanging from Paul’s ²⁶  hand, they said to one another, “No doubt this man is a murderer! Although he has escaped from the sea, Justice herself ²⁷  has not allowed him to live!” ²⁸ 

[9:5]  ¹ tn Again the text uses apposition to clarify what kind of blood is being discussed: “your blood, [that is] for your life.” See C. L. Dewar, “The Biblical Use of the Term ‘Blood,’” JTS 4 (1953): 204-8.

[9:5]  ² tn The word “punishment” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for clarification. The verb דָּרָשׁ (darash) means “to require, to seek, to ask for, to exact.” Here it means that God will exact punishment for the taking of a life. See R. Mawdsley, “Capital Punishment in Gen. 9:6,” CentBib 18 (1975): 20-25.

[9:5]  ³ tn Heb “from the hand of,” which means “out of the hand of” or “out of the power of” and is nearly identical in sense to the preposition מִן (min) alone.

[9:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “and from the hand of the man.” The article has a generic function, indicating the class, i.e., humankind.

[9:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “of the man.”

[9:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “from the hand of a man, his brother.” The point is that God will require the blood of someone who kills, since the person killed is a relative (“brother”) of the killer. The language reflects Noah’s situation (after the flood everyone would be part of Noah’s extended family), but also supports the concept of the brotherhood of humankind. According to the Genesis account the entire human race descended from Noah.

[9:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “the blood of man.”

[9:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “by man,” a generic term here for other human beings.

[9:6]  ⁹ sn See the notes on the words “humankind” and “likeness” in Gen 1:26, as well as J. Barr, “The Image of God in the Book of Genesis – A Study of Terminology,” BJRL 51 (1968/69): 11-26.

[9:6]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[19:12]  ¹¹ tn The גֹאֵל הַדָּם (go’el haddam, “avenger of blood”) would ordinarily be a member of the victim’s family who, after due process of law, was invited to initiate the process of execution (cf. Num 35:16-28). See R. Hubbard, NIDOTTE 1:789-94.

[19:13]  ¹² sn Purge out the blood of the innocent. Because of the corporate nature of Israel’s community life, the whole community shared in the guilt of unavenged murder unless and until vengeance occurred. Only this would restore spiritual and moral equilibrium (Num 35:33).

[21:8]  ¹³ tn Heb “Atone for.”

[21:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and do not place innocent blood in the midst of your people Israel.”

[21:9]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “in the eyes of” (so ASV, NASB, NIV).

[21:2]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “surrounding the slain [one].”

[9:26]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 9:3.

[9:26]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Lord Lord” (אֲדֹנָי יְהוִה, ’adonay yÿhvih). The phrase is customarily rendered by Jewish tradition as “Lord God” (אֲדֹנָי אֱלֹהִים, ’adonay ’elohim). See also the note on the phrase “Lord God” in Deut 3:24.

[9:26]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “your inheritance”; NLT “your special (very own NRSV) possession.” Israel is compared to landed property that one would inherit from his ancestors and pass on to his descendants.

[9:26]  ²⁰ tn Heb “you have redeemed in your greatness.”

[9:26]  ²¹ tn Heb “by your strong hand.”

[28:17]  ²² tn The form is the Qal passive participle. The verb means “to oppress; to wrong; to extort”; here the idea of being “oppressed” would refer to the burden of a guilty conscience (hence “tormented”; cf. NAB, NRSV “burdened”). Some commentators have wanted to emend the text to read “suspected,” or “charged with,” or “given to,” etc., but if the motive is religious and not legal, then “oppressed” or “tormented” is preferred.

[28:17]  ²³ sn The text has “the blood of a life”; blood will be the metonymy of effect for the murder, the shedding of blood.

[28:17]  ²⁴ tn The verse is cryptic; it simply says that he will “flee to the pit.” Some have taken the “pit” to refer to the place of detention for prisoners, but why would he flee to that place? It seems rather to refer to death. This could mean that (1) since there is no place for him to go outside of the grave, he should flee to the pit (cf. TEV, NLT), or (2) he will be a fugitive until he goes to the grave (cf. NASB, NIV, NCV, NRSV, CEV). Neither one of these options is easily derived from the text. The verse seems to be saying that the one who is guilty of murder will flee, and no one should assist him. The meaning of “the pit” is unresolved.

[28:4]  ²⁵ tn Although this is literally βάρβαροι (barbaroi; “foreigners, barbarians”) used for non-Greek or non-Romans, as BDAG 166 s.v. βάρβαρος 2.b notes, “Of the inhabitants of Malta, who apparently spoke in their native language Ac 28:2, 4 (here β. certainly without derogatory tone…).”

[28:4]  ²⁶ tn Grk “his”; the referent (Paul) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[28:4]  ²⁷ tn That is, the goddess Justice has not allowed him to live. BDAG 250 s.v. δίκη 2 states, “Justice personified as a deity Ac 28:4”; L&N 12.27, “a goddess who personifies justice in seeking out and punishing the guilty – ‘the goddess Justice.’ ἡ δίκη ζῆν οὐκ εἴασεν ‘the goddess Justice would not let him live’ Ac 28:4.” Although a number of modern English translations have rendered δίκη (dikh) “justice,” preferring to use an abstraction, in the original setting it is almost certainly a reference to a pagan deity. In the translation, the noun “justice” was capitalized and the reflexive pronoun “herself” was supplied to make the personification clear. This was considered preferable to supplying a word like ‘goddess’ in connection with δίκη.

[28:4]  ²⁸ sn The entire scene is played out initially as a kind of oracle from the gods resulting in the judgment of a guilty person (Justice herself has not allowed him to live). Paul’s survival of this incident without ill effects thus spoke volumes about his innocence.