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Bible Passages About Fetus / Baby

Subduction Zone

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Wildswanderer said:
That's not what it means either in that context.





“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:5)

What does it mean that God knew Jeremiah before even one of his cells were formed?





The Hebrew word for know is yada (יָדַע).

As in English, yada has a wide range of meanings from knowing someone intimately to knowing about them; from knowing how to do something to perceiving, learning, and experiencing something.

Yada appears 947 times in the Hebrew Scriptures, but we’ll focus here on what God knows about us and what it could mean that He even knew us before He knit us in our womb.

In Scripture, we see that God has intimate knowledge of us at the depth of our character and soul:

  • He knows the hearts of all men (1 Kings 8:39; 2 Chronicles 6:30), those who are His servants (2 Samuel 7:20; Nahum 1:7; 1 Chronicles 17:18) and those who are false, vain, and deceitful (Job 11:11).
  • He keeps the lowly close to His thoughts, but only knows the haughty from afar (Psalm 138:6).
  • He knows our words before they are spoken (Psalm 139:4) and the distresses of our lives (Psalm 31:7).
And He knows you, “Even the hairs of your head are all numbered.” (Matthew 10:30)
And in the context it also means " chosen."
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It at best only means that God had plans for that individual before he was even conceived. That does not mean that he knew everyone before they were born, in fact it argues against that.
 
W

Wildswanderer

Veteran Member
Left Coast said:
Your reasoning is that because the verse says God knows someone in the womb, that means they're morally equivalent to a born person. But God, per the traditional understanding, knows all things. God knows people before they're conceived even. So does that mean they have moral equivalence to a born person even before conception, because God knew them then? If the answer is no, then the fact that God knows them in the womb is irrelevant to whether they're considered morally equal to a person while in the womb.
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Yes, to God they were just as valuable before they exist physically because God isn't bound by time. Which just reenforces the truth that no person at any stage is disposable. God planned them before they even existed, so they have value in any state.
 
Subduction Zone

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Wildswanderer said:
Yes, to God they were just as valuable before they exist physically because God isn't bound by time. Which just reenforces the truth that no person at any stage is disposable. God planned them before they even existed, so they have value in any state.
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The verse does not say or even imply that.
 
Left Coast

Left Coast

This Is Water
Staff member
Premium Member
Wildswanderer said:
Yes, to God they were just as valuable before they exist physically because God isn't bound by time. Which just reenforces the truth that no person at any stage is disposable. God planned them before they even existed, so they have value in any state.
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Really? So even before conception we should regard potential persons as actual persons? If that's the case, we ought to prosecute masturbation and contraception as murder.
 
W

Wildswanderer

Veteran Member
Left Coast said:
Really? So even before conception we should regard potential persons as actual persons? If that's the case, we ought to prosecute masturbation and contraception as murder.
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You really don't understand the difference between people's knowledge and God's knowledge?
If a person is valuable to God even when they are still only a thought in his mind, they surely should be valuable to us when " only" a fetus.
 
Left Coast

Left Coast

This Is Water
Staff member
Premium Member
Wildswanderer said:
You really don't understand the difference between people's knowledge and God's knowledge?
If a person is valuable to God even when they are still only a thought in his mind, they surely should be valuable to us when " only" a fetus.
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Then again, by that logic they should be valuable to us when "only" a possibility before even conception. So again, are you going to make masturbation or contraception crimes akin to murder? If no, then you recognize at some level that your reasoning has gone too far.
 
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Rachel Rugelach

Rachel Rugelach

Shalom, y'all.
Staff member
We Never Know said:
I take this as the baby was born early but survived, so its a fine. If it dies then its a life for a life
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Pardon if this has already been pointed out by someone else here (I haven't read through this entire thread) but Exodus/Shemot 21:22 is not referring to whether or not the miscarried embryo or fetus survived. It is referring to whether the woman who was pushed or struck by the man survived. This, according to the great commentator of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (or Shlomo ben Yitzchak, more commonly known by his acronym "Rashi").

Obviously, a miscarriage (and that's the term used in the Hebrew Bible -- not "premature birth") doesn't result in a viable birth. The penalty for causing the woman to miscarry is only monetary restitution because the embryo or fetus is considered to be property or still a part of the woman, rather than a separate person.

Exodus/Shemot 21:22 in the JPS Tanakh

"When men fight, and one of them pushes a pregnant woman and a miscarriage results, but no other damage ensues, the one responsible shall be fined according as the woman's husband may exact from him, the payment to be based on reckoning."

Exodus/Shemot 21:22 in the Tanakh on Chabad.org website, translated by Rabbi A.J. Rosenberg. https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/9882

"And should men quarrel and hit a pregnant woman, and she miscarries but there is no fatality, he shall surely be punished, when the woman's husband makes demands of him, and he shall give [restitution] according to the judges' [orders]."
 
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W

Wildswanderer

Veteran Member
Left Coast said:
Then again, by that logic they should be valuable to us when "only" a possibility before even conception. So again, are you going to make masturbation or contraception crimes akin to murder? If no, then you recognize at some level that your reasoning has gone too far.
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You don't appear to be using reasoning at all.
 
W

Wildswanderer

Veteran Member
Left Coast said:
I've explained the reasoning to you three times now. If you don't grasp it, I'm not sure what more I can say to help. :shrug:
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You still don't understand that God and man are different but we should understand that God valuing a person makes them valuable no matter how small?
 
Left Coast

Left Coast

This Is Water
Staff member
Premium Member
Wildswanderer said:
You still don't understand that God and man are different but we should understand that God valuing a person makes them valuable no matter how small?
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You still don't understand that God, per the verse you quoted, values people before they are even conceived, and thus is irrelevant to a discussion of the moral status of fetuses?
 
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