RE: Noah: did GOD commit genocide?
There is a difference between God Himself taking people’s lives (Noah’s flood) and Israelites commitiing genocide themselves by killing babies, women and children.
AS anyone who has ever killed someone will tell you, killing ( regardless of reason ) has a way of affecting your soul.
True. It also is one reason why God mandated a blood offering for a sin sacrifice. The death of the animal was extremely violent representing the violent spiritual death of Jesus Christ on the Cross to the person being redeemed.
Death as a state of existence involving separation is also accompanied by grief. Our grief occurs in part,because even though we know the departed might be in a better place, we remain separated from them no matter what our volition seeks to influence.
That grief we feel by the death of a loved one, is the same grief God feels whenever we sin. It is why sin is described as "grieving the Holy Spirit".
We are reminded of this terrible condition when the blood sacrifice is made, violently manifesting the volition of the sacrifice being overwhelmed by the event. Just as the volition of God is violently overwhelmed by our arrogance when we sin, we are reminded of the Blood of Christ which is required for our reconciliation to God, His propitiated wrath, and the redemption of our sin, so that we might return into simply a fellowship with Him.