Genesis 9:6 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Genesis 9:6

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The death sentence for premeditated murder by a rational agent is here prescribed by God. It is the duty of every government throughout history to implement it. Murder is such a crime that no other punishment is appropriate. Israel was forbidden to show leniency: ‘ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death: but he shall be surely put to death’ (Numbers 35:31, also Exodus 21:12; Leviticus 24:17). The murderer has crossed a threshold which means that he has forfeited his own life. He failed to be restrained by the recognition of the wickedness of this act. He was not afraid to destroy a fellow human being made my God as the pinnacle of his creation, the only creature on earth capable of consciously worshipping his Creator and obeying his word. Before murder comes hatred, and hatred grows until it bursts forth in the destruction of life. Long before it reaches that point, the one with hatred in his heart ought to have recoiled in horror at where his heart was leading him, and told himself that all human life is sacred. Even thoughts of divine retribution should have held him back. Will God fail to punish such destruction of his work? Who can raise the dead but God? As far as man is concerned, murder is an irreversible evil with consequences beyond his calculation. Murder is the proxy striking of God himself, for although God is out of reach of human hatred, that hatred can be redirected to his image.Man being made in the image of God has to do with all of chapter 9. When you read from verse 2 that the animal kingdom will be in fear of you, that also comes under ‘for in the image of God made he man.’ So it is about the protection of man and his survival, because he is made to seek the Lord, and to have fellowship with him and to know him. The human race is special, and set aside, and is given this safety by God.Human justice is always imperfect, and some leave this world without their murders being discovered. God will not forget what has been done, indeed he will supplement human justice with a further eternal punishment. But man is charged with implementing God’s justice and agreeing with all its standards and sanctions. Human justice required to execute God’s justice. Man’s laws must be based on God’s law, and the sentences of man’s law must reflect the sentences of God’s law.

Application

Questions

It is true that the law extended the death sentence to many other crimes besides murder. Israel was to implement it for idolatry, adultery, kidnap, violence towards parents, cursing of parents, bestiality, homosexuality, defiling the sabbath, and blaspheming the name of God. All these extensions showed God’s hatred of these sins, and certainly the Day of Judgment will reveal that his hatred towards them has not diminished. But even Israel could not carry out the death sentence for these things without hypocrisy when it repeatedly turned away from God’s law as the standard of life. When the national covenant came to an end in AD 70, and the New Testament was now in force, God did not require that the unbelieving nations and their governments continue to recognise all these extensions of the law. The rule for the government of the nations reverted back to what it had been before the time of Moses: death for murder alone.

The reason given in this passage for carrying out the death sentence is that life is of such great value. But how is it that if we value life, we should be prepared to put anyone to death, even a murderer? Surely if we value life, no one should ever die deliberately. Those who argue against the death sentence, argue that life has such value that it is an act of barbarism ever to take it away. But this view fails to analyse the situation properly. In this case, we measure the value of life not by the life of the perpetrator but by the life of the victim. It is because what has been taken is of such incalculable value that justice demands that something equally great should be taken in exchange. Justice is a fitting exchange – a punishment for a crime. To fail to take something of sufficiently high value in exchange for the life of the victim is to devalue the life that has been taken. Only another life is of sufficiently high value to recognise the immensity of the crime. Certainly only God can give permission for the taking of life, but that is exactly what he does here in his word.

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Introduction

Genesis 9:6 Commentary and Bible Study