374. The symbolism of the voice of blood as violence inflicted on charity can be seen from many places in the Word, where a voice is taken to mean everything that accuses and blood to mean every kind of sin, especially hatred. Those who hate their sister or brother kill her or him in their hearts, as the Lord teaches:
You have heard that among the people of old it was said, "You shall not kill; but whoever kills will be subject to judgment." I say to you, though, that any who are angry at their sister or brother without cause will be subject to judgment. Once again, any who say "Raca!" 1 to their sister or brother will be subject to the Sanhedrin. 2 But any who say, "Stupid!" will be subject to fiery Gehenna. 3 (Matthew 5:21-22)
These words refer to different degrees of hatred. Hatred opposes charity, and if it does not kill with its hand, it still does so in its mind or heart, in every way it can. External deterrents alone prevent it from killing with its hand. So every form of hatred is blood, as in Jeremiah:
Why do you amend your ways so as to seek love? Yes, on your hems 4 is found the blood of innocent paupers' souls. (Jeremiah 2:33-34)
[2] Since hatred is blood, so is all wickedness, because the source of all wickedness is hatred, as in Hosea:
False swearing and lying and killing and stealing and the committing of adultery; they rob, and blood has followed on blood. Therefore the earth will mourn and everyone living in it will waste away. (Hosea 4:2-3)
In Ezekiel:
Will you judge the blood-soaked city and let it know all its abominations? The city is shedding blood in its midst. By your blood that you shed you have become guilty. (Ezekiel 22:2-3, 4, 6, 9)
This is about lack of mercy. In the same author:
The earth is full of judgment on [crimes of] blood, and the city is full of violence. (Ezekiel 7:23)
In Jeremiah:
On account of the sins of Jerusalem's prophets, the transgressions of its priests, who shed the blood of the just in its midst, [those same prophets and priests] wander blind in the streets; they are defiled with blood. (Lamentations 4:13-14)
In Isaiah:
... when the Lord washes away the dirt of Zion's daughters, and has cleansed the blood of Jerusalem from its midst, with a spirit of judgment and a spirit of burning. (Isaiah 4:4)
In the same author:
Your palms have been defiled with blood, and your fingers with wickedness. (Isaiah 59:3)
In Ezekiel:
I passed right by you and saw you trampled in your blood, and I told you, "Live in your blood!" And I told you, "Live in your blood!" (Ezekiel 16:6, 22)
This is about Jerusalem's abominations, which are referred to as blood.
[3] The ruthlessness and hatred of the final days are also pictured as blood in Revelation 16:3-4.
Blood is used in the plural here [in the original language] because everything wicked and abhorrent wells up out of hatred, just as everything good and holy wells up out of love. Those who hate their neighbor would kill him or her if possible, in every way they are capable of, which is to inflict violence on their neighbor; and violence is what the voice of bloods properly symbolizes here.
Footnotes:
1. Raca is a Greek form of an Aramaic word meaning "empty," "worthless," "idle." Here it is used as a term of abuse (Liddell and Scott 1968, under ῥακά). [LHC, RS]
2. The term "Sanhedrin" refers to any of several councils of the Jews in Palestine under Roman occupation. Although the function of the councils is a matter of scholarly dispute — they seem to have served a mixture of executive, judicial, legislative, and religious functions — clearly this particular Sanhedrin is envisioned as a court of law. [SS]
3. "Gehenna" is a variant name of the Valley of the Children of Hinnom (גֵּיא בֶן-הִנֹּם [gê ḇen-hinnōm]) south of Jerusalem, where the children of Israel once "passed their children through the fire" (sacrificed them) for Moloch, the god of the Ammonites. Josiah, king of Judah, obeying the commands of the recently rediscovered Torah, defiled this site in his campaign against idolatry (2 Kings 23:10), and in keeping with this historical defilement, it was later used as a refuse dump. The Old Testament refers to this valley in several places (for instance, Jeremiah 7:31-32), and by New Testament times "Gehenna" had become more or less synonymous with hell (and in some versions of the Bible today is so translated). In Mark 9:43-45, Christ, quoting Isaiah 66:24, describes Gehenna as a place for the wicked, "where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched." [LHC, RS]
4. In both the Hebrew and the Latin, the word here translated "hems" (Hebrew כָּנָף [kānāṕ]; Latin ala) can also mean "wings;" see note 1 in §777. [LHC, JSR]
