Kill or Murder?

The title of this post is not the most uplifting, but it reflects a question that comes up repeatedly and deserves a bit of attention.

In Exodus 20:13 in the KJV, the Bible says Thou shalt not kill. Does this mean that all killing is wrong? Can people kill animals? Did God violate His own law when He told Israel to kill some people in the Old Testament?

The wider context of the 10 Commandments is limited to the ending of a human life. God has already made clear to His people that taking the life of an animal is appropriate if the animal is used as food:

Genesis 9:3-4 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.

There is likely a pagan connotation to the eating of blood. To do so does not respect the life that God gave to the animal.

God’s permission of using animals as food required that people kill them and let all their blood out. The draining of the blood ensured that they would respect the life of the animal.

Furthermore, the entire sacrificial system is predicated upon the lawful killing of animals--indeed, the required killing of animals as substitute payments for the sins of the people. So the 10 commandments cannot prohibit all killing including that of animals.

Some may go a step farther and suggest that even plants or trees should not be killed. That is not a contextual understanding of the commandment either, for God commands the cutting down of trees and use of plants to build booths. He permits the use of plant life for food, also necessitating the "killing" of the plant. But plants do not possess the kind of life that animals or humans do, so they are outside the scope of the prohibition against killing.

The killing of insects also does not fit the context of Exodus 20. In other words, God did not prohibit the killing of a varmint (that harms your flock or herd), or a dangerous animal (such as a poisonous snake that could harm a human life or a bull that has the tendency of goring people, Exodus 21:28-29), or a nuisance bug like a mosquito.

We have eliminated animals, insects, and plants from consideration. But there are several ways human life may be ended by another human: in an accidental way, an illegal way, or a legal way. The law in Exodus 20:13 is clearly addressing the illegal way in which a life is ended, by an unjustifiable homicide.

The Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, called the LXX or Septuagint, uses the verb phoneuw, which means to murder or to kill. This word is used also in the Greek of the New Testament. It does not seem to answer the question of whether kill or murder is the best translation of the Exodus passage.

To summarize my understanding: the entire Biblical context urges me to believe that the nuance of "kill" in the KJV of Exodus 20:13 is too broad. "To kill" in modern English suggests more situations are prohibited than the Bible's context allows for (e.g., animals, plants, self-defense). The divinely-intended meaning of the prohibition fits better under the heading of "unjustified homicide." So, it instead should be translated as "murder."

One simplistic answer to the question suggests that the verb used in Exodus 20:13 specifically refers to "murder" instead of the more general "kill." I do not believe that explanation is sufficient because of the broader use of the word in the Old Testament: it is used in ways other than premeditated murder. Instead, the answer has to be drawn from a more wholistic approach to the semantic ranges of the words and the close and far context of the command to determine its meaning.

To flesh out the details concerning the verbs, we start with the Hebrew text of Exodus 20:13, where the verb for "kill" is ratsah. I believe in this context it focuses on murder, that is, to commit homicide, as in premeditated murder. The idea here and in other Biblical texts concerns the unlawful or illegal taking of life. But other Hebrew verbs are used to convey the same idea. The word harag can be used with this significance. Here are some examples:

Gen 4:8 Now Cain talked with Abel his brother; and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed (harag) him.

Gen. 12:12 Therefore it will happen, when the Egyptians see you, that they will say, ‘This is his wife’; and they will kill (harag) me, but they will let you live.

Gen. 27:41 So Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father blessed him, and Esau said in his heart, "The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then I will kill (harag) my brother Jacob."

The previous example is the essence of premeditated murder: Esau is planning in advance to kill his brother.

These examples show that harag is used of premeditated murder, so that ratsah does not own that part of the semantic domain.

Furthermore, there are circumstances in which it is lawful to take the life of another human. These circumstances are categorized under the sub-heading of justified homicide and are mentioned in Scripture, as the following three examples demonstrate.

1. Self-defense. Exodus 22:1-2 If the thief is found breaking in, and he is struck so that he dies, there shall be no guilt for his bloodshed.

2. Capital punishment. Gen. 9:6 Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed; for in the image of God, He made man. Speaking of law officers, Paul in Romans 13:4 says, "For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil." Obviously, if the sword is called into action, it would likely result in the death of the offender.

3. Just war. 1 Samuel 15:2-3 Thus says the LORD of hosts: 'I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he ambushed him on the way when he came up from Egypt. Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.'

Another argument that undercuts the simplistic understanding of the verb ratsah is that sometimes, ratsah is used of something other than premeditated murder.

Deut 4:42 explains that a manslayer may flee to a city of refuge. This is a person who kills (ratsah) his neighbor unintentionally, without having hated him in time past, and that by fleeing to one of these cities he might live. In this example, there is an accident that causes a person to die. It uses the same verb as the 10 commandments, but it does not refer to first degree homicide.

The person who caused the accident is confined in the city of refuge until the death of the high priest. He is therefore not entirely free, but he can live. This shows the seriousness of the loss of human life, which in turn would create in the Israelite community a care about safe working conditions so that human life is preserved. Human life is, in other words, not dispensable. Cultures not attuned to the Mosaic law code do not have this care and sometimes treat life as if it is disposable. Exodus 20:13 does not permit that lax attitude toward human life.

This text along with the extensive passage in Numbers 35 concerning cities of refuge alerts us to the fact that while murder is a good translation in the 10 commandments, we need to broaden the scope of the cases that demand something to be done about the loss of human life. We could read the 10 commandments to prohibit murder as well as to teach that other ending of human life that does not fit into the three categories outlined above is not lawful and must be addressed. In other words, the ending of a human life in a premeditated fashion, out of hatred, requires the death penalty. But the accidental ending of a human life also requires a punishment. The consequences are not as harsh as the death penalty, but nonetheless a substantial penalty is imposed in order to enforce the fact that God made man in His image, and it is no small thing when a life is snuffed out.

My ultimate point is this: while I support "murder" as the better translation in the 10 Commandments, I think it could be that the KJV translators were on to something with "kill" because they recognized that not only purposeful murder but also accidental killing is contrary to God's moral order.

In conclusion, we cannot translate the verb in Exodus 20:13 as murder simply because of the Hebrew verb that is used. The verb can be used in more senses than just premeditated murder. Still, the broader Biblical context indicates that "murder" is a good translation to convey the meaning in English. But we need to take care that we do not eliminate accidental death from the scope of the commandment, because it too is not permissible and requires a punishment.

Finally, we should note that the commandment does not demand that we must be pacifistic, nor that we must be vegetarian. You might run into this twisting of the passage "on the street" like we have sometimes in ministry in our city. An opponents says, "You believe the Bible says to not kill...and yet you kill animals and eat them. You are hypocrites!" As I said above, the context of the passage shows that the killing of animals is not within the scope of the commandment at all.