“And Reuben answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; and ye would not hear? therefore, behold, also his blood is required.”
Reuben replied: didn't I tell you not to sin against the boy? But you wouldn't listen! Now we must give an accounting for his blood. The accounting for blood is the language of blood-guilt — the most serious moral category in the ancient Near East. Reuben's reference to his earlier warning is the I told you so of the person whose voice of conscience was ignored. The application: the person who warned against the wrong and was ignored carries a specific moral clarity in the day of reckoning that those who committed the wrong cannot claim.
COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS
Publish a note on this verse
0/2000
No notes on this verse yet. Be the first to write one!