The above declaration, is a paraphrasing of verse
5, of the Ninth chapter of Genesis, when God speaks to Noah about the
sacredness of human life and the death penalty that should be imposed on every
human or animal who kills an innocent person intentionally, which today would
be technically called “Murder”. (Genesis 9:5).
The sacredness of human life is based in the
natural dignity of the human species being made to the Image and Likeness of
God. Thus was said firstly at the moment of creation (Genesis 1:26); to be
confirmed again to Noah, during the time of the second creation, after the
Great Flood (Genesis 9:6).
Being human life sacred, it is natural that the
harshest penalty was given to other humans, as rational and moral beings, who
driven by evil would decide to murder another fellow human, in complete control
of their faculties and will. However, the order to kill an animal that kills a
human appears odd within this section, since animals are considered to act only
by instinct and not being morally conscious of their actions. Coming to this
verse, reflected later in the Mosaic legislation (Exodus 21:28-29), most
commentators have dismissed the law as simply being an order to kill any animal
who kills a human being for any reason, just to state the point to other human,
that human life is far more dignified that any animal’s and that it is sacred
indeed. This could be simply correct, and the end of the argument, but other
points should also be taken into consideration.
ANIMALS
HAVE A CONSCIENCE
When God created the animals, humans and animals
had a level of communication between themselves that would allow them to live
in mutual cooperation, even though humans were endowed with a much higher
capacity of being in everything, according to their likeness to God Himself (Genesis
3:1-2). This level of consciousness in animals inferior to humans by nature,
necessarily had also to imply a certain level of self-awareness and
self-control to the point to understand humans and comprehend their desires and
be able to cooperate; among them, the capacity to distinguish between right and
wrong.
This capability is implied in Genesis when it is
mentioned that animals were not found to be “adequate company for Adam”
(Genesis 2:20) based not only in the incapacity of reproduction between these two
different species, but in the insufficiency of companionship, which it would
not have been based only by their mute presence, but through a high level of communication
that would allow that consideration in the first place. For this same reason
Eve is not surprised when the first serpent created, possessed by the devil, struck
a conversation with Eve that led to the Fall.
The capacity to understand and distinguish between
bad and good it is also implied when God declares that humans and animals were
given plants and fruits to eat, and not flesh (Genesis 1:29-30), to be
understood that a deliberate decision to kill an animal or human for food would
be considered a sinful action of disobedience, binding so much on humans as on animals.
After the fall, this animal moral consciousness that
today, due to a loss of the original high level of communication between humans
and animals, we dismiss under the term “instinct”, it remained nevertheless in
a damaged condition, but clear enough to still distinguish between right and
wrong to a basic level. For this reason,
as an example, Balaam’s donkey tried to avoid herself to be killed by Lord
Jesus, knowing that there was a life threatening danger. (Numbers 22:22-35).
For this reason also, when animal life was given
to humans for food to Noah, God stated that He had put “the fear of humans”
over all animals, in order for them to know that they had been delivered to humans
for killing (Genesis 9:2). For this reason also Scripture says that animals
will go back to the same condition as when they were created in the New Earth
(Isaiah 11:6-9)
ANIMALS
AND HUMANS
In God giving animals fear for humans, and by
openly forbidding any living creature, including animals, to destroy human life,
it is implied that this awareness is present naturally in all animals, not only
in their DNA, but also in their soul, that to kill a human is wrong. And if this consciousness remains in all
animal predators, that human life is untouchable, the braking of this divine
impression on their souls constitutes an unnatural act of disobedience, and in
this case, punishable by death.
“But
ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they
will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in
the sea inform you.
Which
of all these does not know that the hand of YHWH has done this?”
(Job 12:7-10)
Omar Flores.
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