Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
Ver. 3. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you.] God of his goodness grants here to mankind, after the flood, the use of flesh and wine, that the new and much weakened world might have new and more strengthening nourishment. For it is not to be doubted but that, by the deluge, a great decay was wrought both in the earth with its fruits, and also in man's nature. Various ridges and scars, as it were, of God's wrath and malediction abided and appeared in the earth. Sundry maladies also and infirmities befell man's body, not felt before the flood. God therefore in great mercy provides, penum quoddam et pharmacopolium mundo senescenti, a new food and physic for the languishing world. "Every moving thing that liveth," &c., only, that as the green herb have I given you all things; that is, as you may use them as freely as you used to do herbs, so you must use them soberly, and without curiosity; taking such things as are at hand, and eating to live, not living to eat, as the rich glutton, that fared deliciously every day: -
“ Ingluvies, et tempestas, barathrumque macelli .” - Horat.
a Flac. Illyric .