What exactly is meant by "hands that shed innocent blood"?
The scripture that says "hands that shed innocent blood" What exactly is hands that shed innocent blood mean like abortion and murdering someone? Is shedding innocent b blood the same as turning off life support from someone who is terminal and doctors turned them to comfort care? Can any of this be forgiven ? Thanks Carolyn
Proverbs 6:17
ESV - 17 Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood.
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Asked May 09 2018
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Carolyn Rosado
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Tim Maas
I view Solomon as speaking in a legal sense here, rather than a spiritual sense. He is referring to taking the life of a person who has committed no offense for which the law prescribes death as a penalty. I would say that, spiritually, apart from faith in Christ, there is no "innocent blood" in God's eyes. We are all from conception sinners worthy of the penalty of temporal death and eternal separation from Him, as David expressed in Psalm 51:5 after his sin with Bathsheba. (If this were not true, God would have been unjust in taking the life of David and Bathsheba's child as punishment for David's sin.) (That is not meant as a justification for abortion, but as a comment that it does not fall within the scope of what Solomon was referring to.) Turning off life support, or administering only palliative care when there is no known medical hope of consciousness, recovery, or cure is, in my view, doing what would have been referred to (before the advent of technology that is able to extend biological existence indefinitely) as "letting nature take its course". Also, even the most heinous legal or moral offense is not beyond the power of God to forgive for Christ's sake. The only thing that God cannot forgive is a person's failure to seek the forgiveness and salvation that He offers through faith in Christ.
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