Adam Clarke's Bible Commentary Verse 5. Surely your blood-will I require; at the hand of every beast] This is very obscure, but if taken literally it seems to be an awful warning against cruelty to the brute creation; and from it we may conclude that horse-racers, hare-hunters, bull-baiters, and cock-fighters shall be obliged to give an account to God for every creature they have wantonly destroyed. Instead of hyj chaiyah, ""beast,"" the Samaritan reads [Sam. Yod Kaph] chai, ""living,"" any ""living creature or person;"" this makes a very good sense, and equally forbids cruelty either to men or brutes.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 4-7 - The main reason of forbidding the eating of blood, doubtless wa because the shedding of blood in sacrifices was to keep the worshipper in mind of the great atonement; yet it seems intended also to chec cruelty, lest men, being used to shed and feed upon the blood of animals, should grow unfeeling to them, and be less shocked at the ide of shedding human blood. Man must not take away his own life. Our live are God's, and we must only give them up when he pleases. If we in an way hasten our own death, we are accountable to God for it. When God requires the life of a man from him that took it away unjustly, the murderer cannot render that, and therefore must render his own instead One time or other, in this world or in the next, God will discove murders, and punish those murders which are beyond man's power to punish. But there are those who are ministers of God to protect the innocent, by being a terror to evil-doers, and they must not bear the sword in vain, Ro 13:4. Wilful murder ought always to be punished with death. To this law there is a reason added. Such remains of God's imag are still upon fallen man, that he who unjustly kills a man, deface the image of God, and does dishonour to him.
Original Hebrew ואך389 את853 דמכם1818 לנפשׁתיכם5315 אדרשׁ1875 מיד3027 כל3605 חיה2416 אדרשׁנו1875 ומיד3027 האדם120 מיד3027 אישׁ376 אחיו251 אדרשׁ1875 את853 נפשׁ5315 האדם׃120
