Every moving thing that lives will be food for you?

Someone recently requested clarification of Genesis 9:3 which says:

Genesis 9:3 [Speaking to Noach] "Every moving thing that lives will be food for you; just as I gave you green plants before, so now I give you everything"

[Now don't get ahead of me here! In Genesis 9:3, YHWH is NOT saying that "every" animal is food for Noach and his family; rather, see Genesis 7:2 - YHWH tells Noach to take into the Ark "Of every clean animal you are to take seven couples, and of the animals that are not clean, one couple". So Noach already knew which animals were clean and which were unclean! Thus, by the commandment in Genesis 9:3 which says "Every moving thing that lives will be food for you", it can only mean "clean moving things" to Noach.]

Do take note that the first we hear of what humans can eat is in Genesis and it is "every seed-bearing plant" and every tree with "seed-bearing fruit". Therefore we already have a sense that YHWH intended only certain things for us to eat, for while telling us we can eat seed-bearing fruits and plants, it simultaneously implies that plants that do not bear seeds, we cannot eat! This is a most important understanding!

Take note also that during the creation, YHWH gives every wild animal, bird in the air, and creature crawling on the earth "as food every kind of green plant"! So it seems that YHWH intended EVERY animal, bird and creature to eat green plants!

For more on this issue, please check out our two articles explaining what constitutes "clean" food": Clean food? and Eating kosher.