Notes Critical and Practical, on the Book of Genesis. By George Bush [pp. 271-301]

Bush on Genesis.
Man was to be secured against the attacks of rapacious
animals by that fear of him with which they should be impressed, (verse 2). This instinctive awe of the human form
should be a safeguard to Noah's diminished company against
the wild ferocity of the brute creation. Moreover, he should
be at liberty to slay them at his will for his nourishment and
support, (verse 3), with this only restriction, (verse 4), "But
flesh, with the life thereof which is the blood thereof, shall
ye not eat." "And (verse 5) surely if the blood of the
brute creation is thus to be held sacred, your blood of your
lives," or your life-bloo(ld, will I require, i.e. avenge. Thus
was Noah's band to be protected also against the jealousy and
rage of their fellow men, no less than from the wild fury of
the lower animals. God declares that their blood should be
avenged upon the murderer: upon every beast that should
destroy human life: upon every man that should brutally
assassinate his fellow; and in verse 6 it is specifically ordained that man himself should be the instrument by which
Divine justice should visit the sacrilegious deed upon the
perpetrator. This we consider as the only natural and true
connection; and this viewv of the passage is demanded by the
phraseology.
The verb tw', though frequently used in an absolute sense, has an established meaning when found in construction with ~7. To "seek blood," according to the
manifest usage of the Hebrew Scriptures, is not to seek it
like a beast of prey, or a blood-thirsty assassin. It is by no
means equivalent to the English phrase to "seek one's life;"
i. e. to aim at his death. But inasmuch as the murderer who
takes another's life is regarded as having it in his possession, as the spoil of robbery, the Hebrew phrase to "seek
blood" means to search for it, as thus plundered; and
when the life of the murderer is taken in return that of
the murdered is recovered. This is an established idiom of
the language, and to the sense of a passage its observance is
very material. To take each word independently and use it
in its absolute signification is wholly unwarrantable where
the expression is known to be idiomatic. In this case the
meaning is completely metamorphosed. How would it answer thus to disregard the idioms of any other language?
In the Latin, for example, we have "dare peenam," which
all are familiar with, as meaning "to suffer punishment."
But "dare" absolutely signifies "to give..' Who would on
this ground assert that the expression may mean, "to ad
1839.]
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