Genesis 9:5

Hebrew Bible

3 You may eat any moving thing that lives. As I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. 4 “But you must not eat meat with its life (that is, its blood) in it. 5 For your lifeblood I will surely exact punishment, from every living creature I will exact punishment. From each person I will exact punishment for the life of the individual since the man was his relative. 6 “Whoever sheds human blood, by other humans must his blood be shed; for in God’s image God has made humankind. 7 “But as for you, be fruitful and multiply; increase abundantly on the earth and multiply on it.”

Luke 11:50

New Testament

48 So you testify that you approve of the deeds of your ancestors because they killed the prophets and you build their tombs! 49 For this reason also the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ 50 so that this generation may be held accountable for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the beginning of the world, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be charged against this generation. 52 Woe to you experts in religious law! You have taken away the key to knowledge! You did not go in yourselves, and you hindered those who were going in.”

 Notes and References

"... Luke 11:50-51 ... As in the segment of Old Testament history that acculminated in the Babylonian exile, the culmination of generations of accumulated wickedness is contemplated here as bringing the judgment of God. There is both personal responsibility and inherited guilt. The idiom 'to seek the blood' is an Old Testament idiom that in the LXX uses the language found here (Genesis 9:5; 42:22; 2 Kings 4:11; Ezekiel 3:18; etc.). The language evokes the Old Testament stipulation of a death penalty for murder, with its implications of the cleansing of the land from pollution (e.g., Numbers 35:33). 'Prophets' here is used loosely (compare the use in Genesis 20:7 in connection with Abraham) of those with an intimate link with God (this is a problem for Matthew, who speaks rather of 'all the righteous blood'). The present generation is to answer for all the pollution caused by the spilling of the blood of God's servants from creation onwards (compare Revelation 18:4). This comprehensiveness finds its home in apocalyptic thought (the similarity between 'from foundation of the world' here and 'from the beginning of creation' in Mark 13:19, along with the general similarity of thought, suggests that the link to Daniel 12:1 of that verse may be via an exegetical tradition also reflected here) ..."

Nolland, John Word Biblical Commentary: Luke 9:21 - 18:34 (p. 668) Word Books, 2008

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