Remember, you can visit our “personal” Page each morning too! I’ve named it “Standing with the Bagwells.” How else might you learn that this morning’s Lesson is being written from a motel room (Holiday Inn Express) in Reidsville, North Carolina? Where I am preaching a Revival Meeting.

Proverbs 6:16-19 lists seven “Things God Hates.”

Today we discuss the Bible concept of “innocent blood.” Particularly the wrongful (abominable) “shedding” of innocent blood.

Proverbs 6:16-17, read these two verses. “These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: a proud look, a lying tongue, and HANDS THAT SHED INNOCENT BLOOD ….” And the list goes on! Another way of saying, “More tomorrow!”

The noun (Hebrew) used here for “hand” is “yad.” To give you a fuller “sense” of its meaning, the very word is also translated “power” 12 times in het OLD testament (King James Version).

It can also indicate a hand holding something, here a “weapon” one supposes. Since bloodshed is in the context. (The Hebrew word for an open hand is “kaph,” translated “hand” 127 times but “palm” 5 times and “hollow” 3 times.)

God hates … hands that shed innocent blood.

To “shed” blood (in Hebrew “shaphak”) means “to pour” it upon the ground, or somewhere. The “time” idea here (a participle) hints at habitual action. This person is a serial blood-shedder!

Murder!

Manslaughter!

Homicide!

Maybe even suicide!

God hates such!

But, exactly, what is “innocent blood?”

The expression occurs 19 or 20 times in Scripture.

It means to harm someone (invasively so, wounding them) who does not deserve to be so treated. Like little unborn babies! Like the clerk at a convenience store who was working that Friday night the robber attacked! Like a terrorist bomber might kill (an unsuspecting bystander) at a bus stop!

God, in the Pentateuch, expected Israel to punish murderers who had so shed “innocent blood.” According to Deuteronomy 19:13 “innocent blood” cries out to God for vengeance, retribution, punishment upon the perpetrator.

Judas Iscariot himself, in feigned remorse, claimed that he (by selling the Lord Jesus) had “betrayed innocent blood!” Matthew 27:4 is the reference.

Unsolved murders in our culture, that innocent blood, just may be asking God to judge our land. Here’s God talking to the first human murderer: “What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.” Genesis 4:11

Yes, blood is that “special” to God.

By the way, Jesus’ Blood saves us from sin.

And anyone who rejects that pristine “Innocent Blood” … will pay for their rebellion eternally!

Wow!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell