Blood in the Old Testament

Just as there are some ways in which faith seems to be a fluid or a type of electromagnetic field (and glory too), some parts of the scriptures sound like they are talking about magic, especially involving blood.  Most but not all in the Old Testament.

Here is the scripture I just ran across that made me think of it.

2 Samuel 35:15-17

 And David longed, and said, Oh that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate!

And the three mighty men brake through the host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem, that was by the gate, and took it, and brought it to David: nevertheless he would not drink thereof, but poured it out unto the Lord.

And he said, Be it far from me, O Lord, that I should do this: is not this the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives? therefore he would not drink it. These things did these three mighty men.

Because the water had been obtained by the risk of the men’s blood, it had obtained some of the power of that blood.  We could think of this as a gesture on David’s part, but it sure seems like he actually meant it.  (see v. 8-11 for the mighty men’s names).  After all the atonement theories that have been given, the best one of all may be the one that C.S. Lewis gave in Narnia.  The shedding of the divine blood was inherent magic to break the conditions of mortality.

Although sacrifice by blood has been done away, think about what it means that these men were still able to perform a sacrifice of themselves without actually shedding blood by running risks.  it is still neat to think that your risks and your efforts, the things to which you devote your body, is in some sense still literally perform a sacrifice.

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Now watch as my mind flits.  The human sacrifice element makes me think of the other story of human sacrifice in the Old Testament, where the judge sacrifices his virgin daughter, the story that is like the myth of Iphigenia.  I think motherhood and fatherhood too are like that story.  The good you seek to accomplish in raising your children can only be accomplished by losing them in some sense.  Here are these virgins and then you turn them over to the work of God in having and raising children (which involves shedding their own blood in at least two ways, menstrually and then in childbirth).  Motherhood is blood magic?

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Thank you for accompanying me in this journey through my misfiring neurons.  I don’t know that I really discovered a point.  That’s for you to say.  I report, you decide.