Man is Permitted to Eat Flesh but not Blood – Genesis Chapter 9
by Sabrina Dawkins
After the flood, God told Noah and his sons to populate the earth with their seed to refill it. Although in Genesis 9:11 God says he will not kill every living creature again by flood waters, he will now allow flesh to be eaten, which helps population control. He had already in Genesis 6:3 cut the years of man down to only 120 years because man had become all flesh with no desire for a spiritual relationship with him. God made all the living creatures fear Noah and his sons and permitted Noah and his family to now eat the flesh of the creatures, but the blood must first be drained so that it is not consumed, because the life of the flesh creature is in its blood and therefore blood represents the life of the creature. God did not want Noah and his family to eat the creature while it was still alive—they were only permitted to eat the shell of the deceased creature.
God will require the lifeblood of the person who drinks the blood of the creature (Genesis 9:5; Leviticus 17:14). And he will require the life of the man who kills another man; whoever kills a man will be killed by a man. Man’s life is special. He is very valuable because he is made in the image of God.
After the flood, the earth was repopulated by Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Noah became a farmer and planted a vineyard. He became drunk from the wine and lay inside his tent naked. Ham saw this and told his brothers outside the tent. Unlike Ham, Shem and Japheth did not look at Noah’s naked body; instead, they went inside the tent backwards and covered up their father’s nakedness. They knew that it was wrong to look at their father unclothed and had no desire or curiosity to see him like that. But Ham’s immorality was revealed in looking at his father’s nakedness and even telling his brothers. Noah’s drunkenness put him in an incapacitated state where he could not cover himself before Ham. So in Luke 1:15, John the Baptist will come drinking “neither wine nor strong drink.”
When Noah awoke from his drunken state, he knew what Ham had done and he cursed his seed, Canaan, to be a servant to his brothers, Japheth and Shem. After the flood, Noah lived 350 years and then died at 950 years old.