Whoever sheds human blood,
By man his blood shall be shed,
For in the image of God
He made mankind.
As for you, be fruitful and multiply;
Populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it.”Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying, “Now behold, I Myself am establishing My covenant with you, and with your descendants after you.
Genesis 9:6-9 (NASB)
Rabbi Ovadiah Seforno in the 1500s suggests that the Covenant God makes with Noah in Gen 9 is a CONDITIONAL covenant tied to the previous verses about the shedding of blood.
Ie., “I won’t destroy the earth with a flood IF you deal rightly with murderers.”
He ties this conditional covenant to Numbers, saying that if human blood is spilled and not addressed rightly, the land will need to be wiped clean again; there is no atonement otherwise.
So you shall not defile the land in which you live; for blood defiles the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of the one who shed it.
Numbers 35:33 (NASB)
I’ve given a lot of thought to the nature of death, and how we read clearly that God killed many people in the flood. Going back to the start, we read that God Himself positioned death in the garden by way of a certain tree. It wasn’t “IF” you eat the fruit, it was “WHEN.”
So when we read that God was “sorry” He made humanity, and that this word “sorry” has a meaning tied to a desire for comfort and repenting, the Numbers passage suddenly resonates.
An image of what the Messiah will do emerges.
It will take His blood.
So you shall not defile the land in which you live; for blood defiles the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of the one who shed it.
Numbers 35:33 (NASB)
This is not the same as saying that God made a mistake in introducing death. It is acknowledging that despite death being here, God will undo all of it with His own blood.