Recently, a right-wing Christian political commentator named Allie Beth Stuckey began making the rounds on Twitter/X because of a tweet she made claiming that she supported the death penalty because she was pro-life. Her argument was, in essence, that murderers violate the sanctity of life; and out of His abundant mercy, God permits capital punishment for such offenders. She cites Genesis 9:6 as a primary proof-text; and implies that the text is still applicable today because it’s pre-Mosaic (and thus not annulled by the cross) and grounded in a creation principle (namely, that man is created in God’s image).
I want to offer a very modest response to Stuckey’s claims. I’m not particularly interested in laying out a comprehensive theological case for opposing the death penalty; a project like that would, in my estimation, demand a more long-form medium than a blog post. I also don’t intend to address Rom 13, a text she alludes to later in passing, as that would demand another blog post of its own. Instead, I wish simply to demonstrate that interpreting Genesis 9:6 as a timeless authorization of human-mediated capital punishment is more complicated than Stuckey makes it out to be. While I don’t typically wade into trendy theological debates happening over on Twitter, I felt particularly compelled this time around because of the research I’ve done in this area. I wrote my master’s thesis on the anthropological and theological significance of blood in the Pentateuch—and I dealt with Pentateuchal homicide laws (and with Genesis 9:6, in particular) at some length.
Genesis 9:6 is commonly translated something like this: “Whoever sheds human blood, by humans [bāʾād̲ām] shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind.”
That sounds simple enough, right? On the surface, God here simply ordains that there should be ‘talionic’ (“life for life”) retribution for the shedding of innocent human blood (read: capital punishment). Let’s dig in a little more.
In context, this command immediately follows the flood saga. In that saga, the shedding of blood is what ultimately brought about the diluvial ruin of the cosmos in the first place. In Genesis 9, God wants to preempt a similar fate by restraining violence and bloodshed. God knows that the nature of man is not necessarily going to change post-flood (that’s hinted at in Genesis 8:22), so He needs to address threats of human violence in some other way. Here in Genesis 9:6, he appears to institute capital punishment as a deterrent.
However, there is some not-insignificant ambiguity surrounding the nature of the punishment that God institutes in 9:6. Already, any English translation you read of this verse has been unavoidably interpreted by translators.
For instance, there is debate over the proper rendering of the Hebrew term bāʾād̲ām (typically translated “by man” or “by humans”) in v. 6a. The preposition that appears at the beginning of the word is a beth preposition; and there is disagreement over whether this is a beth instrumenti or a beth pretii. The former is more commonly used in English translations and indicates instrumentality (i.e., “by man shall his/her blood be shed”); the latter is less commonly used in English translations and indicates price or exchange (i.e., “in exchange for that man shall his/her blood be shed”).
It may seem tedious; but this debate has significant ramifications. If the beth instrumenti is what the Genesis author intended, then this seems to gesture toward human-mediated capital punishment. If, however, the beth pretii is what the Genesis author intended, then it gestures instead toward God Himself being the active agent who redeems the blood of the slain.
Jacob Milgrom—one of the foremost Jewish scholars on the Torah—in this magisterial, multi-thousand page Leviticus commentary, makes a robust argument that the beth pretii is indeed what the author of Genesis 9 intended. His argument is grounded primarily in the grammatical structure of v. 6a: šōp̲ēk̲ dam hāʾād̲ām bāʾād̲ām... According to Milgrom, “the chiastic structure of this verse, …(ABC C’B’A’), makes it certain that both ādām words (CC’) refer to the same man, namely, the victim, and the prefixed beth must therefore be the beth pretii.”[1]
A chiasm, for those who are unfamiliar, is a literary device where concepts or words are repeated in reverse order to create some kind of syntactic or thematic parallelism. In the case of Genesis 9:6, the parallelism is syntactic:
A – Whoever sheds
B – the blood
C – of a man
C’ – for that man
B’ – his blood
A’ – Shall be shed
Milgrom’s point is that the parallelism embedded in this chiastic structure indicates that both C and C’ are referring to the same ‘man’ (and that man is the victim). The man whose blood is shed is the same man for whom a reckoning is demanded. There is a price/exchange connotation here, and this points us toward the beth pretii being the correct rendering. This also helps to explain the verse’s use of a definite article in C’. If you read the Hebrew closely, the verse doesn’t just say “for man shall his blood be shed,” it says, “for that man shall his blood be shed.”[2] For what man? For the victim!
Milgrom’s rendering is further substantiated by the fact that the passage’s broader context emphasizes God’s right to blood, and God’s jurisdiction over life. In verse 5, God says that it is He Himself who will require a reckoning for bloodshed. In this passage, there doesn’t appear to be any interest in assigning humankind their own jurisdiction over life. In fact, as we saw in Genesis 4-8, when mankind does assume authority and jurisdiction over human life, it tends to end badly.
Finally, as Matthew Lynch has noted, if Milgrom’s rendering is correct, this would be in continuity with Genesis 4:15, where God vows to personally avenge Cain’s blood should anyone kill him.[3] There as well as here, God is the one offering to be the active agent in the redemption of the victim’s blood.
As you can see, then, Genesis 9:6 does not unambiguously sanction human-mediated capital punishment; and there are actually good reasons to think that it reserves capital punishment for God alone.
HOWEVER…even if you were convinced that the beth instrumenti rendering was correct and that 9:6 did sanction some kind of human-mediated capital punishment, this would still not be sufficient to make the case for capital punishment today. Genesis 9, in context, is doing something far different than merely authorizing capital punishment. (In fact, some form of capital punishment/blood vengeance seemed to already be in practice in the days of Cain; e.g., Cain worries in Gen 4 that others will kill him to avenge Abel, and God vows to protect him). As we discussed earlier in this post, Genesis 9 follows the flood saga; and throughout the text, God aims to address and restrain the plague of human violence that gave rise to the flood in the first place. Gen 9 emphasizes the sanctity of all life, God’s sole jurisdiction over all life, and the deeply human need for atonement.
John C. Nugent summarizes things this way:
The antediluvian violence that warranted the flood apparently involved killing and consuming animals with no regard for the sanctity of life. God therefore reins in this practice by informing Noah and his descendants that all lifeblood is God’s exclusive possession. Though humans may now consume animals, perhaps as a sort of concession, they must acknowledge that all life belongs to God alone by draining animal blood before eating. Whether humans acknowledge it or not, all bloodshed is a ritual sacrifice and may only be performed according to specific guidelines prescribed by God. These guidelines, of course, anticipate the Israelite sacrificial system as spelled out in Torah. As an extension of this ritual practice, God also reins in human bloodshed. If animal blood may be shed only under carefully prescribed, divinely mandated conditions, how much more the blood of those who bear God’s image? When people usurp God’s exclusive right to human blood, they violate God’s order and commit a sacred offense that must be rectified. To put this in theological terms, atonement is necessary. It is fitting that this ritualistic violation of sacred blood be met with an equally cultic practice that begins and ends with the slayer’s blood…..God is not here introducing humanity to a new practice. Humans were inclined to execute killers since Cain and Lamech’s day. Rather, in response to the escalating vengeance of Lamech and the rampant violence of antediluvian culture, God affirms the need for atonement, makes explicit its sacrificial nature, and limits the shedding of blood to the single life of the slayer.[4]
The primary theological principle at play in this passage (even if read with the beth instrumenti rendering) is not that God has authorized for all time the practice of human-mediated capital punishment at the discretion of human judicial systems. Rather, the passage emphasizes that 1) life is sacred and belongs to God alone, and 2) blood should only be shed under “carefully prescribed, divinely mandated conditions”—typically with the aim of atonement.[5]
Through the remainder of the Old Testament and into the New Testament, the conditions under which God permits capital punishment follow a trajectory of mercy:
The lex talionis, or law of equal recompense (that is, “eye for eye” and “life for life”), continues God’s desire to limit retaliation in ways proportional to the original offense—nothing more. The cities of refuge, which were presided over by priests, were instituted to protect the life of a killer who did not kill on purpose. The need for multiple witnesses to secure a conviction and the transference of responsibility for prosecution from the next of kin to community leaders and judges, places further restraints upon capital punishment. The practice of Yahweh War, both to secure the promised land and to maintain it, is defined in ritual, sacrificial terms and requires divine authorization through priests (Deut. 7:2-6; Josh. 6:17-21).[6]
This trajectory culminates, of course, with the life and death of Jesus the Messiah. Jesus explicitly challenges the ongoing practice of lex talionis in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:38-44). He also challenges the teachers of the law when they seek to execute a woman caught in adultery, and affirms His authority to forgive even civil offenses (John 8). Most importantly, however, Jesus’s crucifixion is itself a wrongful execution that brings about “a decisive end to sacrifices for sin” (Heb 2:17; 9:26; 10:12). [7] Because Genesis (and the Pentateuch more broadly) frames blood vengeance (i.e., capital punishment) as a kind of sacrificial and atoning act, blood vengeance (i.e., capital punishment) is fulfilled also in Jesus’s once-for-all sacrifice. (Perhaps all of this helps to explain, then, how someone like Paul the apostle could be called to ministry by the resurrected Christ rather than sentenced to death for the blood on his hands.)
Much more can be said, but I suppose I’ll leave it at this for now. I trust what I’ve shared is sufficient to demonstrate that Genesis 9:6 is not the slam-dunk of a proof text that Allie Beth Stuckey makes it out to be; and there are several grammatical, contextual, and hermeneutical factors that complicate her confident interpretation of this passage. I’ve outlined just a few of them here.
A Brief Postscript
As I’ve hinted throughout the post, I am opposed to human-mediated capital punishment today—and I find it to be ethically problematic on several grounds. Again, I can’t offer a comprehensive defense of that position in a single blog post; but I do want to leave you with just a tad more food for thought. First, Christians of all people should be able to attest to the fallibility of human justice systems; we worship a Messiah who knew no sin and was nevertheless executed at the hands of the state. When dealing with a penalty as irreversible as death, the proven fallibility of our justice system should be enough to give Christians pause. Even more, though, our crucified Messiah—in his life, death, and resurrection—witnessed to the inviolable dignity of all life, the value of mercy, the hope of redemption, and the beauty of restorative justice. We caught just a glimpse of this in our analysis above. Christ and His cross forever bid us to sanctify our imaginations! How can we address civil offenses in ways that 1) promote justice, protection, and safety for victims; 2) respect God’s sole jurisdiction over all human life; and 3) witness to the mercy, redemption, and restoration available through the Kingdom of God?
That’s something to be prayerful about. I hope you’ll join me in prayer!
[1] Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 3; New York, NY: Doubleday, 1992), 705.
[2] Matthew J. Lynch, Portraying Violence in the Hebrew Bible: A Literary and Cultural Study (Cambridge: Cambridge, 2020), 84.
[3] Ibid.
[4] John C. Nugent, “The End of Sacrifice: John Howard Yoder’s Critique of Capital Punishment,” in Reading Scripture as a Political Act: Essays on the Theopolitical Interpretation of the Bible, ed. Matthew A. Tapie and Daniel Wade McClain (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2015), 293.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid., 294.
[7] Ibid., 295–96.
Jared Dale Greer 
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