Provision for the sustenance of the newly appointed monarch and his subjects is next made. We learn from the divine record that man was to eat of the products of both field and tree, in other words of grain, nuts, and fruit; the animals, to eat of “every green herb,” vegetables, or green plants, and grass.

 The wording of this regulation reveals that it was not the will of God that man should slaughter animals for food, or that animals should prey upon one another; consequently, the violent and often painful destruction of life by man and animals is a result of the entry of sin into the world. It was not till after the Flood that God gave man permission to eat of the flesh of animals (see ch. 9:3). Even ancient pagan legends speak of a golden age of innocence, when man abstained from killing animals (Ovid Met. I. 103-106). That no animal of any kind ate flesh at the first may be inferred from the prophetic announcements in Isa. 11:6–9; 65:25, of the new earth state, where the cessation of sin and the complete transformation of the world into the kingdom of God are accompanied by the cessation of slaughter of any of God’s creatures.

The clear teaching of Scripture that death entered the world through sin shows clearly that God originally intended that neither man nor animals should take life in order to provide themselves with food.

 All arguments based on the premise that it is necessary to kill animals to check their excessive increase are of doubtful value. It is futile to speculate on what would have happened to this world if animals and human beings had multiplied unchecked in perpetuity. God certainly had made His plans to meet changing conditions as they would arise. These plans have not been revealed to us, because sin entered the world before the need arose to check an excessive reproduction (see v. 28).