Two Hebrew words. Lo tirtsach.
“You shall not murder.” (Exodus 20:13)
The shortest commandment of the 10, and the one almost most readers assume they’ve always kept.
That’s until 2 problems appear.
Within a few chapters of this verse, the same God commands executions and sends Israel into battle. And centuries later, Jesus says the commandment is broken by anyone who’s angry with his brother.
So which is it? A narrow rule that most of us have never ever come close to breaking? Or one so wide that nobody escapes?
Kill or Murder? The Translation Matters
Older English Bibles read “Thou shalt not kill”, and that wording has caused a great deal of confusion. It’s not what the Hebrew says.
Three Hebrew words for taking life
Hebrew has several words here, and this commandment uses a specific one.
Ratsach —It appears about 47 times in the Old Testament, and it’s never used of killing animals, never of soldiers in battle, never of a court carrying out a sentence, and never of God.
So “murder” is the accurate translation. The commandment forbids the unlawful taking of human life—on private authority.
But don’t conclude the commandment is narrow. The same word ratsach appears throughout Numbers 35, the passage about the cities of refuge—and there it covers the man whose axe head flew off the handle and killed his neighbour (Deuteronomy 19:5). The word reaches beyond deliberate killing to include culpable carelessness with human life.
That’s worth pausing on. Israel’s law also required a parapet round the flat roof of a new house, so nobody would fall from it and bring bloodguilt on the household (Deuteronomy 22:8). The builder who skipped the railing may not have murdered anyone. Yet, he had, in God’s reckoning, treated a human life as something he could gamble with.
Why Does This Commandment Belong in the Ten?
At first glance this is the easiest commandment to justify. Every society forbids murder. What does revelation add?
It adds the reason—and the reason changes everything.
“Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.” (Genesis 9:6)
Notice what’s not given as the reason. Not that murder destabilises society. Not that it causes grief. Not that it removes a productive member of the community. All of those are true. Yet none of them is what God cites.
The reason is the image of God. To kill a human being is to attack the one creature in all creation that bears God’s likeness. It is, as John Currid puts it in his commentary on Genesis, an assault on God by proxy.
Why this is the most important sentence in Christian ethics
Ask any society what makes a human life valuable and you’ll get answers that vary by person. Intelligence. Usefulness. Independence. Contribution. Consciousness. Potential. Every one of those is a sliding scale, and every sliding scale produces people at the bottom.
Scripture gives an answer that doesn’t slide. Human worth isn’t earned, measured or awarded. It’s a status God assigned at creation, and it’s therefore identical in every human being.
| IF HUMAN WORTH COMES FROM… | THESE WOULD BE JUDGED LOW VALUE |
|---|---|
| Intelligence or ability | The disabled, the brain-injured, the very young |
| Usefulness or productivity | The unemployed, the retired, the chronically ill |
| Independence | The infant, the frail, anyone needing care |
| Being wanted by others | The abandoned, the refugee, the unwanted child |
| Social standing or birth | Anyone born into the wrong caste, class or community |
| The image of God | Nobody. That is the point. |
This is why the sixth commandment sits in a list of ten and not in a legal footnote. It isn’t merely a prohibition. It’s a doctrine of the human being, and every argument Christians make about the unborn, the dying, the disabled, the enemy, the criminal and the outcast runs back to this verse.
How radical this was
It’s easy to assume every ancient society valued life equally. They didn’t, and the legal codes prove it.
Surrounding law codes graded the penalty for killing by the status of the victim. Kill a nobleman and the consequence was severe; kill a commoner and it was lighter; kill a slave and the matter was usually settled with a payment to the owner, as though a piece of property had been damaged. Human beings had prices, and the prices varied.
Israel’s law broke with this at the decisive point. “You shall accept no ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death, but he shall be put to death” (Numbers 35:31). No payment could settle it. Wealth bought no exemption, and the poverty of the victim reduced nothing.
Douglas Stuart observes this single provision tells us how differently Israel was being asked to think. If life could be priced, then some lives would cost less than others, and the whole doctrine of the image of God would quietly collapse into a market. So God removed the price.
There’s an even simpler reason. Life’s the one thing that can’t be restored. Or given back. Stolen money can be repaid. A lie can be corrected. A broken marriage can, sometimes, be rebuilt. Nothing repairs a killing.
Does This Forbid All Killing?
No—and Scripture makes that plain, which is precisely why the translation matters.
The principle running underneath is that life may not be taken on private authority. Vengeance belongs to God, and God has delegated the administration of justice to lawful authority rather than to individuals (Romans 12:19; 13:4). The commandment doesn’t abolish justice. It removes the sword from our hands.
| CASE | THE REFORMED POSITION | THE LIMIT THAT GOES WITH IT |
|---|---|---|
| Accidental death | Not murder. Israel provided cities of refuge for those who killed unintentionally (Numbers 35:11). | Culpable negligence is still guilt. The refuge was for genuine accident, not carelessness. |
| Self-defence | Permitted. A householder who killed an intruder in the night wasn’t held guilty (Exodus 22:2). | The same law held him guilty if it happened in daylight, when the threat was assessable. Force must be proportionate. |
| Capital punishment | Permitted to the state, on the authority of Genesis 9:6 and Romans 13:4. | It belongs to the magistrate, never to the individual, and Christians differ on whether it should be used today. |
| War | A state may lawfully defend its people and restrain aggression. | Not every war is just. The cause, the authority, the intention and the treatment of civilians all come under judgement. |
WHY PRIVATE VENGEANCE IS FORBIDDEN BUT PUBLIC JUSTICE ISN’T
The ancient world ran largely on clan vengeance. If a man was killed, his relatives took revenge—and the family on the other side then took revenge for that. Feuds ran for generations.
Israel’s cities of refuge broke the cycle. A person who’d killed someone could flee to one of 6 designated cities and be safe there until the case was heard by the assembly (Numbers 35:12). Intent was investigated. Witnesses were required, and no one could be executed on the testimony of a single witness (Numbers 35:30).
That was due process, in the 2nd millennium BC. The point wasn’t that killing became acceptable when a court did it. The point was that judgement was taken out of the hands of the angry and placed in the hands of the accountable.
Christians who agree on all of the above still disagree about how it applies. That isn’t evasion; it’s the difference between a principle and its application, and the confessions themselves leave room here.
Jesus Makes It Wider, Not Narrower
If the commandment stopped at unlawful killing, most of us could file it away. Jesus doesn’t allow that.
“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder’… But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.” (Matthew 5:21–22)
This isn’t Jesus adding a new commandment. It’s Jesus explaining the one that was always there. As we argued in the introduction to this series, every commandment names an outward act and indicts the inward disposition behind it. Murder is simply the last step on that road. And Jesus names the preceding steps.
| THE STEP | WHAT IT IS |
|---|---|
| Anger nursed | Not the flash of anger, but the version that’s kept, fed and revisited |
| Contempt | The insult—treating another person as beneath serious regard |
| Dismissal | “You fool”—writing someone off as worthless, which is a verdict only God may pass |
| The act | Which most people never reach, because circumstances stop them rather than character |
Why should anger count as murder? Because murder begins long before the body is killed. Beneath the act lies a wish: I wish you weren’t here. Sustained contempt is the same impulse in miniature: I wish you mattered less. Took up less space. Would simply go away.
The murderer acts on that impulse. Most of us stop short. But Jesus is asking a more disturbing question: Is the difference between us and a murderer really one of character—or merely of opportunity and restraint? John leaves no room for escape: “Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer” (1 John 3:15).
That sounds outrageous—until we realise what Jesus is doing. He isn’t lowering the seriousness of murder. He’s raising the seriousness of hatred. And that, we believe, is the sixth commandment understood correctly.
Notice too what Jesus tells us to do about it. He doesn’t say “feel less angry”. He says leave your gift at the altar, go, and be reconciled first (Matthew 5:23–24). The remedy for the sixth commandment isn’t self-control.
It’s a walk to someone’s door.
Where This Bites Today
The unborn
If human worth rests on the image of God rather than on capacity, it doesn’t begin when capacity begins. Scripture speaks of the unborn as persons known by God, not as potential ones: David says God knitted him together in his mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13). And John the Baptist responds to Christ while still in the womb (Luke 1:41). Israel’s law also imposed penalties for harm to an unborn child (Exodus 21:22–25).
We hold, therefore, that abortion is the taking of a human life bearing God’s image. Many who read this will carry private grief, regret or pain. The gospel isn’t a system for ranking sinners. There’s no sin the cross cannot cover. A church that speaks about abortion without speaking about forgiveness preaches only half the gospel.
No, this is no modern Christian innovation. The early church lived in a Roman world where unwanted infants could be abandoned to die. Christians became known for rescuing and raising them. The Didache, a Christian text dating to around the end of the first century, explicitly forbids both abortion and infanticide. So this isn’t a recent political position. It is part of the church’s earliest witness to the value of human life.
The dying
The same principle governs the other end of life, and it requires a careful distinction.
- Deliberately ending a life is killing, whether the motive is compassion or convenience, and whether the person consents to it or not.
- Allowing a death is not. Withdrawing treatment that can no longer help, and letting a terminal illness take its course, isn’t murder. There’s no obligation to prolong dying by every technical means available.
- Relieving pain isn’t killing, even where strong medication may shorten life as a side effect. The aim is to relieve suffering, not to end the person.
This matters more with every passing year. Several countries have legalised assisted dying, and in some, eligibility has expanded from the terminally ill to those with chronic illness and other conditions. The Christian objection isn’t that suffering doesn’t matter. It’s that a society that begins by offering death as mercy may eventually make death feel like an obligation—especially to those who already suspect they’re a burden. The doctrine of the image of God stands as a powerful protection: our worth doesn’t depend on our usefulness, health or quality of life.
But there’s an important distinction between intentionally causing death and recognising a treatment can no longer achieve its purpose. Sometimes the faithful choice isn’t to prolong dying at all costs. Families facing such decisions need compassion, not the suggestion that there’s only one permissible Christian answer.
Contempt, in public
The most common breach of this commandment among Christians is almost certainly not violence. It’s the sustained contempt the internet has made effortless.
Notice how precisely Jesus described the mechanism. First anger, then insult, then the verdict a person is worthless. That’s the standard sequence of an argument online, compressed into about 90 seconds. Sinclair Ferguson has observed we’re rarely tempted to kill people, and constantly tempted to write them off—which is the same road, travelled a shorter distance.
Neglect
The commandment also reaches what we fail to do. Jesus’ parable of the good Samaritan makes two men guilty who never touched the injured traveller; their sin was walking past a man they could have saved (Luke 10:31–32). Life we could have preserved and didn’t isn’t outside this commandment’s reach.
What the Commandment Requires
Here the rule that governs this series does its heaviest lifting. “You shall not murder” is a prohibition with an enormous positive duty inside it: preserve life.
| WHAT IT FORBIDS | WHAT IT THEREFORE REQUIRES |
|---|---|
| Taking innocent life | Protecting and defending the innocent |
| Careless disregard for safety | Care with vehicles, buildings, workplaces and machinery |
| Nursed anger, contempt, and writing people off | Peacemaking, and going first to be reconciled |
| Standing by while life is lost | Feeding the hungry, treating the sick, rescuing the endangered |
| Neglect of our own bodies | Reasonable care of the life God gave us—rest, food, medicine, work |
| Words that destroy a person’s standing or spirit | Speech that builds, defends and restores |
The Westminster Larger Catechism pushes the commandment further than “don’t kill.” It includes comforting the distressed and protecting the innocent. And even the wise use of food, drink, medicine, sleep, work and recreation. Why? Because the sixth commandment isn’t merely a prohibition against taking life. It’s a command to value, protect and preserve life—including our own.
When the Murdered Man Speaks
The first death recorded in Scripture was a murder. Cain killed Abel in a field, and God said his brother’s blood was crying out from the ground (Genesis 4:10). Blood that cries out is blood demanding justice.
The Bible closes the thread in an unexpected place. Hebrews says Christians have come to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to His sprinkled blood “that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Hebrews 12:24).
Abel’s blood called for justice. Christ’s blood answers for it.
And notice how He got there. Jesus was killed—judicially murdered, by a court that knew better, on the testimony of witnesses who lied. When Peter drew a sword to defend Him, He told him to put it away (Matthew 26:52). The only innocent man who ever lived became the victim of the sixth commandment and refused to answer it with violence.
So How Is The Commandment Actually Kept?
Not merely by refraining from murder. Almost everyone manages that. Jesus made it clear the commandment goes much deeper.
We keep it by confronting contempt while it’s still small. By noticing the people we’ve quietly decided aren’t worth our while—and refusing to leave them there. By making the phone call, offering the apology, or extending the forgiveness we’ve been postponing.
And the commandment has a positive half too—the half we often miss. It doesn’t merely tell us not to take life; it calls us to protect it . And preserve it—in how we drive, build, work, speak, care for the vulnerable, and treat those society has already decided matter less.
Here’s a test worth remembering: Murder begins when a face stops being a face.
History’s great atrocities began with language that turned people into categories—vermin, animals, parasites, a problem to be solved. The same impulse operates on a smaller scale in a family, an office or a comment thread.
The sixth commandment calls us to do the opposite: to keep seeing the face—as a person made in God’s image.
Next in this series: the seventh commandment. Having protected life, the Decalogue turns to the covenant in which life begins.
Tough Questions, Honest Answers
Is capital punishment consistent with the sixth commandment?
The commandment forbids murder, not lawful execution, and the two are different words in Hebrew. The authority for capital punishment is given in Genesis 9:6—before Israel existed, to humanity as such—and grounded precisely in the image of God, and Paul says the governing authority does not bear the sword in vain (Romans 13:4). So we don’t think Christians can say capital punishment is inherently forbidden by this commandment. Whether a state should use it is a further question, and here sincere Christians differ, weighing the risk of executing the innocent, the unequal way sentences fall on the poor and on minorities, and the state’s actual competence to administer it justly. Our own view is that the principle stands while the practical case for restraint in most modern systems is strong.
Is it a sin to serve in the armed forces or the police?
No. When soldiers asked John the Baptist what they should do, he didn’t tell them to leave the army; he told them not to extort money and to be content with their wages (Luke 3:14). Cornelius, the first Gentile convert recorded in Acts, was a serving centurion and is described as devout before he ever met Peter. Paul’s statement that the magistrate bears the sword as God’s servant assumes people who carry it. What Scripture does not do is hand anyone in uniform a blank cheque: an order to kill the innocent must be refused, force must be proportionate, and the person on the other side still bears the image of God. Christians in these professions carry a genuinely heavy conscience, and their churches should support them rather than either romanticising or suspecting them.
Is all anger sinful, or only some of it?
Not all anger is sin. God is repeatedly described as angry, Jesus looked round at His critics with anger and grief (Mark 3:5), and Paul quotes the Psalms: “Be angry and do not sin” (Ephesians 4:26). Anger is the proper response to real evil, and a person who feels nothing at cruelty has a defect rather than a virtue. What Jesus condemns is anger that is nursed rather than resolved, and anger that slides into contempt for the person. The two practical tests are what it is aimed at—the wrong, or the human being—and how long it is kept, which is why Paul adds that the sun should not go down on it.
Is it wrong to defend yourself or your family with force?
No. Israel’s law explicitly protected a householder who killed an intruder breaking in at night (Exodus 22:2), and the protection of dependants is a duty rather than an indulgence. Two limits go with it. The same law removed the protection if the same act happened in daylight, when the threat could be judged and help could be summoned—so force must be proportionate to actual danger, not to fear or anger. And self-defence is not revenge: once the threat has passed, what remains belongs to lawful authority and to God, not to you. Christians will draw practical lines differently on weapons and training, and that is a matter for conscience rather than for confession.
If someone takes their own life, are they lost?
The Reformed answer is no, and the reasoning matters. Salvation rests on the finished work of Christ received by faith, not on the state of a person’s mind in their final hour, and Scripture nowhere teaches that one particular sin at the end cancels what Christ has done. The older idea that suicide is automatically damning came largely from medieval theology rather than from the Bible, and it has caused enormous and unnecessary anguish to grieving families. This does not make it a small thing—life is God’s gift and not ours to end—but it is very often the end point of an illness or an unbearable despair rather than a settled act of defiance, and God judges with a knowledge of the whole person that we do not have. If you are reading this because these thoughts are your own, please tell someone today—your doctor, your pastor, a trusted friend, or a crisis helpline in your country. You are not beyond help, and the people who love you would far rather be troubled than bereaved.
Is abortion ever permitted—to save the mother’s life, or in cases of rape?
Two situations are usually distinguished, and it matters that they aren’t the same question. Where a mother’s life is genuinely threatened—an ectopic pregnancy is the clearest case—removing the threat may be medically necessary even though it costs the child’s life; the intention is to save the mother, not to end the child, and that isn’t morally identical to an elective abortion sought for other reasons. Most historic Christian ethics has permitted this narrow case while still grieving it as the loss of a life bearing God’s image. Rape raises a harder pastoral question rather than a different moral one: the child conceived in violence is no less made in God’s image for how the pregnancy began, and ending that child’s life doesn’t undo the assault—it adds a second loss to the first. What such situations call for isn’t a verdict delivered from outside but extraordinary practical support, walked out with the woman rather than merely pronounced over her.
Am I guilty of breaking this commandment if I only wish someone were dead, without ever acting on it?
There’s a real difference between an intrusive, unwanted thought and a wish we’re entertaining. Scripture doesn’t hold us responsible for every dark thought that crosses the mind unbidden and is resisted—that’s closer to temptation than to sin. What John describes as murder in 1 John 3:15 is hatred that’s been welcomed and nursed: the settled wish that someone would simply cease to be a problem by ceasing to exist. If you find yourself dwelling on such a wish, rehearsing it, feeling satisfaction rather than shame at the thought—that’s the commandment already being broken in the heart, exactly where Jesus said it begins (Matthew 5:21–22). The remedy isn’t to feel worse about it privately. It’s the same remedy Jesus gives for anger generally: name it, take it to God, and—if it concerns someone you can still reach—go and be reconciled.
CONTINUE THE SERIES: THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
This post is part of our series working through the Ten Commandments. It follows Why God Gave the 10 Commandments—And Why These 10?, The First Commandment: Why Does God Demand Exclusive Worship?, The Second Commandment: Why Does God Forbid Idols?, The Third Commandment: What Does “Taking God’s Name in Vain” Mean?, The Fourth Commandment: Why Did God Command a Day of Rest?, and The Fifth Commandment: Why Must We Honour Our Parents?.
Related Reads
- Why God Gave the 10 Commandments—And Why These 10?
- The First Commandment: Why Does God Demand Exclusive Worship?
- The Second Commandment: Why Does God Forbid Idols?
- The Third Commandment: What Does “Taking God’s Name in Vain” Mean?
- The Fourth Commandment: Why Did God Command a Day of Rest?
- The Fifth Commandment: Why Must We Honour Our Parents?
- The Seventh Commandment: Why Does God Care About Adultery?
- The Eighth Commandment: Why Does God Forbid Stealing?
- The Ninth Commandment: Why Does God Care About Truth?
- The Tenth Commandment: Why Does God Care About What We Desire?
- Is the Death Penalty Ever Justified?
- Is Abortion Justified In the Case of Rape?
- What Does the Bible Say About Euthanasia?
