I. ‘Blood’ In The Old Testament

CHAPTER III

THE BLOOD

THE MEANING OF THE WORD ‘blood’ in Scripture, especially with reference to the blood of the sacrifices in the Old Testament and to the blood of Christ in the New, has been the subject of some discussion, and the writings of W. Milligan, B. F. Westcott, N. Hicks, and Vincent Taylor, to name but a few, have urged the opinion that by ‘the blood’ life is meant rather than death, so that the essential thing in sacrifice is the offering up of life. This view has been opposed by such scholars as J. Denney, J. Moffatt, J. Armitage Robinson, and more recently, J. Behm²⁰⁷ and F. J. Taylor.²⁰⁸

I. ‘BLOOD’ IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

a. Classification of passages

The word dām is used in the Hebrew Bible 362 times with various shades of meaning. The occurrences may be grouped as follows:

(i) Death with violence of some kind: 203 examples.
1. Generally: 165 examples. Here I class passages like ‘Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed’ (Gn. 9:6); ‘the avenger of blood’ (Nu. 35: 19, etc.); ‘he that maketh inquisition for blood remembereth them’ (Ps. 9: 12).
2. In the phrase ‘innocent blood’: 21 examples. ‘Thou shalt put away the innocent blood from Israel’ (Dt. 19:13).
3. One’s blood being on oneself: 12 examples. ‘For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death ... his blood shall be upon him’ (Lv. 20: 9).
4. Death of animals: 5 examples. ’What man soever there be of the house of Israel, that killeth an ox, or lamb, or goat ... and hath not brought it unto the door of the tent of meeting, to offer it as an oblation unto the Lord ... blood shall be imputed unto that man; he hath shed blood’ (Lv. 17: 3f.).

(ii) Connecting life with blood: 7 examples.
‘For as to the life of all flesh, the blood thereof is all one with the >life thereof’ (Lv. 17:14).

(iii) Eating meat with blood: 17 examples.
1. The practice prohibited: 12 examples. ‘Ye shall eat neither fat nor blood’ (Lv. 3:17).
2. The practice occurring: 5 examples. ‘The people did eat them with the blood’ (I Sa. 14: 32). This group is closely connected with the previous one as Leviticus 17:11,14 shows.

(iv) Sacrificial blood: 103 examples.
1. Generally: 94 examples. ‘Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread’ (Ex. 23 : 18).
2. The institution of the Passover: 6 examples.
3. Heathen sacrifices: 3 examples.

(v) Other uses: 32 examples.
1. Turning the Nile into blood: 8 examples.
2. Processes of birth, etc.: 12 examples.
3. Bleeding: 3 examples.
4. Colour: 3 examples.
5. Of grapes: 2 examples.
6. ‘A bridegroom of blood’: 2 examples.
7. Metaphorical: 2 examples. ‘Shall I drink the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives?’ (2 Sa. 23:17).

From these figures it is clear that the commonest use of dām is to denote death by violence, and, in particular, that this use is found about twice as often as that to denote the blood of sacrifice. There is a difference also in distribution, for the blood of the sacrifices is often mentioned in Leviticus and Exodus (the actual figures are fifty-nine for Leviticus and nineteen for Exodus), but rarely elsewhere, there being no more than twenty-five references to sacrificial blood in all the rest of the Old Testament. By contrast the use of blood to denote violent death is not specially located in any part of the Old Testament, and is found almost throughout. As far as it goes, the statistical evidence indicates that the association most likely to be conjured up when the Hebrews heard the word ‘blood’ was that of violent death.

b. The connection between blood and life

Those who think that ‘the blood’ means essentially ‘the life’ pay a good deal of attention to Leviticus 17: 11, ‘For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh atonement by reason of the life’. Also important is the statement, ‘the blood is the life’ (Gn. 9: 4; Dt. 12: 23). They also draw attention to the prohibition of eating flesh with the blood yet in it (Lv. 3: 17; 7: 26f.; 17: 10, 12, 14, etc.), the refusal of David to ‘drink the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives’ (2 Sa. 23: 17), the parallel statements that Yahweh will require ‘your blood, the blood of your lives’ and ‘the life of man’ (Gn. 9: 5), and the psalmist’s parallel use of ‘soul’ and ‘blood’ (Ps. 72: 14). This represents a formidable body of evidence and indicates that among the Hebrews a close connection between life and blood was recognized.

But does it indicate more? Many think it does; for example, Vincent Taylor says: ‘The victim is slain in order that its life, in the form of blood, may be released ... the aim is to make it possible for life to be presented as an offering to the Deity. More and more students of comparative religion, and of Old Testament worship in particular, are insisting that the bestowal of life is the fundamental idea in sacrificial worship’.²¹⁰ On this view the slaughter of the animal is necessary, but only because there is no other way of obtaining the blood, the life. The death plays no real part in the sacrifice.

It is difficult to see how such a view can be substantiated. It goes beyond the words of the passages cited, for there is none which speaks of the blood as indicating life in distinction from death. Some of the passages adduced lend no real support to the idea when we look into them. Thus, while it is true that ‘your blood, the blood of your lives’ is used in the same fashion as ‘the life of man’ (Gn. 9: 5), yet its support of the theory is no more than superficial. ‘Blood’ here means death rather than life. When Yahweh says He will require the life or the blood of man, He is not asking men to produce life or hand it back to Him: He is saying that men will be held responsible for destroying life. It is not otherwise with the parallelism of ‘soul’ and ‘blood’ in Psalm 72:14. What is meant by ‘precious shall their blood be in his sight’ is made clear by the very similar statement of Psalm 116: 15’Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints’, so that redeeming the soul in the first half of the verse is an expression meaning ‘to deliver from death’ (cf. Ps. 116: 8).

Similarly David’s refusal to ‘drink the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives’ is a metaphorical statement and must be understood so. David certainly did not mean that he would literally be partaking of either the blood or the lives of the men, and the statement must not be tortured into giving an unreal meaning. It is a defect of the view we are considering that it insists on taking very literally certain statements about blood, when there is abundant evidence that the word was used continually in a variety of metaphorical senses. Thus we read of ‘innocent blood’, and there are many expressions like ‘his blood be on his own head’ which make nonsense if we try to take them in a literal sense. This is the case with ‘Cursed be he that taketh reward to slay an innocent person (lit. the blood of the innocent)’ (Dt. 27: 25), for it is manifestly impossible to limit the application of the words to murders where blood literally flows, whilst exempting those brought about without actual spilling of blood. Again, A. M. Stibbs draws attention to another figurative use of ‘vivid word pictures involving “blood” ... especially to indicate people’s connection with someone’s death’,²¹¹ and he cites Judah’s saying concerning Joseph, ‘What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood?’ (Gn. 37 26), the description of Joab as one who ‘shed the blood of war in peace, and put the blood of war upon his girdle ... and in his shoes’ (I Ki. 2: 5), and the psalmist’s idea of the vengeance of the righteous when ‘he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked’ (Ps. 58: 10). Such examples could be multiplied, and in the face of them it is difficult to insist that passages like Leviticus 17: 11 mean that life is literally in the blood.

Further, it may not be without significance that nephesh, which is translated ‘life’ in Leviticus 17: 11, is not coterminous with the English ‘life’. It can mean something very like ‘life yielded up in death’. It occurs in passages which refer to ‘taking away’, ‘losing’, ‘destroying’, ‘giving up’ or ‘devouring’ life, to ‘putting one’s life in one’s hand’ and to the life ‘departing’. A not uncommon way of referring to slaying is to speak of ‘smiting the nephesh’ (Gn. 37: 21; Nu. 35 : 11; Je. 40: 14, etc.), while those who desire to murder someone are usually said to ‘seek his nephesh’, an expression which occurs thirty times (e.g. Ex. 4:19; Ps. 35: 4) and which is reinforced by others which speak of ‘lying in wait for the nephesh’, ‘laying a snare for the nephesh’, etc. (I Sa. 28: 9; Pr. I: 18). Some passages speak of ‘slaying the nephesh’ or the nephesh ‘dying’ (Nu. 31: 19; Ezk. 13: 19; 18: 4).

There is surely significance in the fact that the word is used in such a variety of ways with regard to death. But even more important for our present purpose are certain passages where nephesh plainly points to death. Thus the sailors, about to cast Jonah into the sea, pray ‘let us not perish for this man’s nephesh’ (Jon. I: 14) Clearly it is his death and not his life they have in mind. It is not otherwise with a number of passages which speak of ‘life for life’ as the punishment for murder, for example, ‘Deliver him that smote his brother, that we may kill him for the nephesh of his brother whom he slew’ (2 Sa. 14: 7).²¹² Then there are passages wherein nephesh is translated by ‘dead’ or a similar term, as ‘Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead (Idnephesh)’ (Lv. 19: 28; cf. Lv. 21: I; 22: 4; Nu. 5: 2; 6: 11; 9: 6, 7, 10; Hg. 2: 13, and, with the addition of mēth, Lv. 21 : II; Nu. 6: 6; 19: II, 13). The expression ‘blood of the life (lives)’ is found twice (Pr. 28 : 17;Je. 2: 34) and both times it signifies violent death.

From all this it is clear that the association of nephesh with dām in Leviticus 17:11, etc., cannot be held to prove that life is thought of as still existent after the blood has been poured forth. This use of both nephesh and dām in other contexts makes it more probable that the meaning here is that of life given up in death.²¹³ This is supported by the fact that it is ‘the life of the flesh’ that is said to be in the blood, and it is precisely this life which ceases to exist when the blood is poured out. For the understanding of sacrifice there is an important use of nephesh in Isaiah 53 : 10ff., where the offering of the nephesh is spoken of in sacrificial terms (it is an ’asham, a guilt offering). But in verse 12 we have this offering of nephesh described as ‘he poured out his nephesh unto death’.

Again, to speak of the life as in some way existent in the blood subsequent to the slaughter of the animal is to ignore the Hebrew stress on the connection of life with the body. So far were the Hebrews from thinking of an immaterial principle of life that they associated life in the age to come not with the immortality of the soul, but with the resurrection of the body. If they found difficulty in thinking of human life as persisting after the death of the body, it is most unlikely that they would think of the life of an animal as persisting after slaughter. Indeed, in the case of most of the sacrifices there is explicit mention of the animal being killed before the blood is referred to. To take an example at random: it is very difficult to believe that the writer had life in mind when he said, with reference to the cleansing of a leprous house, the priest ‘shall ... dip (certain things) in the blood of the slain bird’ (Lv. 14: 51), for the bird is expressly said to be ‘slain’. We seem far from the extremely practical Hebrew turn of mind when we read of ‘soul-substance’ (with W. O. E. Oesterley and E. O. James), or of the term blood suggesting ‘the thought of life, dedicated, offered, transformed, and open to our spiritual appropriation’.²¹⁴ It is much more likely that A. M. Stibbs is correct when he sums up as follows: ‘Blood shed stands, therefore, not for the release of life from the burden of the flesh, but for the bringing to an end of life in the flesh. It is a witness to physical death, not an evidence of spiritual survival.‘²¹⁵

↑ Back to top