Canter Bridge

Abel’s spilt blood cries out and earns YHWH’s attention in the early chapters of the book of Genesis. So effectual is this innocent blood’s clamor for justice that its plea become enshrined in Israel’s legal code.

Indeed, innocent blood stains the land. Its removal, or rather the setting right of the injustice that occasions it, is regularly called a purging. A few examples will illustrate this odd assertion:

Deuteronomy 19:13: Show no pity; you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, so that it may go well with you.
Deuteronomy 21:8-9: Absolve, O LORD, your people Israel, whom you redeemed; do not let the guilt of innocent blood remain in the midst of your people Israel. Then they will be absolved of bloodguilt. So you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from your midst, because you must do what is right in the sight of the LORD.

Innocent blood stands as testimony against the nation that permits the taking of innocent life. The proper response to its discovery is not so much adequate legal process as it is the turning of a moral Bunsen burner to its stain.