I was asked about blood crying for vengeance from the ground. The question was how this reconciled with charity or forgiveness.
Blood “crying from the ground” is not the same thing as a person crying out for vengeance. Keep the context in mind: It is the blood which was shed upon the earth which cries out for vengeance or fairness or retribution. Something unfair has occurred, and the cry of the blood “upon the ground” is a reminder of the injustice of it all.
The ground is a reference to the earth, which has a spirit, intelligence, and is able to communicate if a person were capable of listening. It is a female spirit, and she regards herself as “the mother of men.” This earth is offended when the men who are upon her kill one another or engage in any form of wickedness upon her surface. Below is her lament as she beheld the disorder and murder caused by that generation upon whom the flood was unleashed:
“And it came to pass that Enoch looked upon the earth; and he heard a voice from the bowels thereof, saying: Wo, wo is me, the mother of men; I am pained, I am weary, because of the wickedness of my children. When shall I rest, and be cleansed from the filthiness which is gone forth out of me? When will my Creator sanctify me, that I may rest, and righteousness for a season abide upon my face?” (Moses 7: 48.)
Even if the person whose blood was shed departed this earth forgiving those who made offense against him, yet would “the ground” cry out for vengeance because the earth has become filthy by reason of the killing which took place upon her. She, as the “mother of men,” regards the killing of men upon her as an abomination. She cries out. She is offended. She wants righteousness to appear on her, as has happened before. She longs that it be brought about again. When, instead of Zion, she has the murder of men upon her face, it is so great a lamentation by her spirit that “the ground cries out for vengeance” because of the atrocity.
Even if we forgive those who sin against us, they still have to suffer the demands of justice for what they have done, less in this life if they repent here or much more so in the next if they don’t repent here. Our forgiveness doesn’t take those consequences away from them, though it can lessen those consequences.
What was even more interesting to me the last time I did an in-depth read of Moses was the following verse (Moses 7:49). Enoch has a connection to the Earth…he weeps for her. Moses calls Earth and Heaven to witness in Deut 32:1, which also parallels temple worship for those who can see it. These men of old had something, an awareness and a sensitivity that we do not seem to share collectively as saints today.