Genesis 9:4 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

But flesh with the blood thereof shall ye not eat One meaning of this may be, Ye shall not cut off, tear away, or take any member or part of any creature for your food, while it is yet alive; but ye shall first spill its blood, and thereby put it to death in the way most easy to it. This is the sense which the Jews give the words, and, thus understood, they contain a prohibition of all cruelty toward those animals which are killed for food. And the prohibition, in this point of view, was not unnecessary, the practice here condemned being not unusual in ancient nor even in modern times, in many parts of the East. The principal meaning, however, of the passage, is to prohibit the eating of blood in any way, the eating of which seems to have been forbidden especially for two reasons: 1st, To be a token to mankind in all ages, that they would have had no right to take the life of any animal for food, if God had not given them that right, and who, therefore, to remind them of it, and impress it on their minds in all generations, denied them the use of blood, and required it to be spilled upon the ground: 2d: In honour of the blood of atonement, Leviticus 17:11-12. The life of the sacrifice was accepted for the life of the sinner, and blood made atonement for the soul, and therefore must not be looked upon as a common thing, but must be poured out before the Lord, 2 Samuel 23:16. And it ought to be observed, that this prohibition of eating blood, given to Noah and all his posterity, and repeated to the Israelites, in a most solemn manner, under the Mosaic dispensation, has never been revoked, but, on the contrary, has been confirmed under the New Testament, Acts 15.; and thereby made of perpetual obligation.