Commandment Series by Heather Scarborough
“You shall not murder.” Exodus 20:13
When God gave the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai, He established how His covenant people were to live before Him and with one another. The first four commandments addressed Israel’s relationship with God, and the fifth established the responsibility to honor father and mother. The sixth commandment turns to the preservation of human life. In just three Hebrew words, God establishes a boundary that protects the life of another person: You shall not murder.
The brevity of this command does not diminish its weight. Human life was not to be treated as disposable, and no person was free to take another’s life according to personal desire, hatred, or revenge. To understand the commandment, we must consider what God prohibited, how Israel was instructed to uphold the value of life, and what this command reveals about the heart.
The Hebrew commandment reads:
לֹא תִּרְצָח
Lo tirtsach.
The word לֹא (lo) means “not” or “no.” The word תִּרְצָח (tirtsach) comes from the Hebrew root ratsach, which refers to murder or unlawful killing. Together, the words form a direct prohibition: “You shall not murder.”
The choice of the word ratsach is significant. The commandment is not a blanket prohibition against every circumstance in which a human life might be taken. The laws given to Israel distinguished between intentional murder and accidental killing, addressing them differently. The commandment prohibits murder, while the surrounding laws establish how such cases were to be judged.
This distinction does not lessen the seriousness of taking a life. Rather, it demonstrates that God required His people to consider the circumstances, intent, and responsibility involved. Human life was too valuable for accusations to be handled carelessly or for justice to be governed by personal anger.
The value God placed on life was established long before Israel stood at Mount Sinai. In Genesis 4, Cain became angry with his brother Abel, and that anger culminated in murder. When God confronted Cain, He asked, “Where is your brother Abel?” Cain responded, “I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9). Cain attempted to distance himself from responsibility for his brother, but God already knew what had happened. Abel’s blood cried out from the ground, and Cain could not conceal his guilt.
This account reveals that murder is not merely an offense against another person. It is an offense committed before God, who sees the life that has been taken and holds the offender accountable. Cain’s question also exposes the attempt to deny responsibility for another human being. God’s commandment makes clear that the life of another person is not ours to disregard.
The value of human life is further established in Genesis 9:6, where God declares the seriousness of shedding human blood. This instruction was given to Noah after the flood, before the nation of Israel existed. The principle therefore reaches beyond Israel’s national laws: human life carries a significance that demands accountability when it is deliberately destroyed.
When God gave Israel the Law, He established specific protections and consequences surrounding the taking of life. Exodus 21:12-14 distinguishes between a person who strikes another and causes death intentionally and circumstances in which a death occurs without the same intent. The distinction mattered because justice required more than simply identifying that someone had died. It required examining what had happened and holding the responsible person accountable according to the circumstances.
The account of Moses provides another passage to consider when examining the taking of human life. In Exodus 2:11-15, Moses saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. After looking around and seeing no one, Moses struck the Egyptian and hid his body in the sand. When Pharaoh learned what had happened, he sought to kill Moses, and Moses fled to Midian. Although Moses witnessed an injustice, the passage does not present his actions as an example of God authorizing personal vengeance. Moses took matters into his own hands, concealed what he had done, and faced the consequences. His actions remind us that witnessing wrongdoing does not automatically give us the authority to decide how justice should be carried out. Our belief that an injustice has occurred does not, by itself, make our response righteous.
Numbers 35 further explains the difference between murder and accidental killing. God instructed Israel to establish cities of refuge where a person who had caused an accidental death could flee for protection while the matter was considered. These provisions did not treat every death as murder, nor did they allow a person who had deliberately killed another to escape accountability by claiming the same protection. The circumstances had to be examined.
These laws demonstrate that God’s prohibition against murder was not an isolated statement. It was part of a broader system intended to protect life, establish justice, and prevent personal vengeance from determining a person’s fate. Israel was not permitted to treat human life casually, but neither was justice to be administered carelessly. Both the life that had been lost and the responsibility of the accused mattered.
The commandment also challenged the idea that a person could claim ownership over another person’s life. Anger does not grant that authority. Jealousy does not grant it. A desire for revenge does not grant it. No personal grievance gives someone the right to decide that another person’s life no longer matters.
This is where the commandment calls for an examination of the heart. Most people will never commit murder, but the commandment still confronts the attitudes that can lead a person to treat another human being as worthless. Contempt can grow when we reduce someone to their failures, define them only by what they have done to us, or begin to believe that they deserve nothing but harm. These attitudes are not the same as murder, and the distinction must remain clear. Yet they reveal how easily we can disregard the value of another person when anger or resentment governs our thinking.
Cain’s story illustrates this danger. His actions did not begin with the murder of Abel. Anger and jealousy were already present before he took his brother’s life. God confronted Cain before the murder, warning him about the danger that lay before him (Genesis 4:6-7). Cain was responsible for how he responded, and his anger did not excuse what followed.
The heart application is not that every angry thought makes someone a murderer. It is that anger must not become a justification for wrongdoing. We cannot control every feeling that arises, but we are responsible for how we respond. When resentment is allowed to grow unchecked, we may begin to justify words and actions that harm others. We may excuse cruelty because we believe the other person deserves it. We may seek to punish someone ourselves rather than leave room for truth and justice.
God’s commandment confronts that posture. Another person’s wrongdoing does not make their life worthless, and our own suffering does not give us unlimited authority over how we respond. Justice matters, accountability matters, and wrongdoing must not be excused. But neither may personal hatred become the standard by which we decide how another person should be treated.
The sixth commandment also requires us to consider how a community regards human life. If murder is treated as an ordinary consequence of anger or revenge, life becomes vulnerable to the strongest person’s desires. God’s laws rejected that order. The people were to recognize that taking a life carried serious consequences and that justice belonged within the order God had established, not in the hands of uncontrolled personal vengeance.
This commandment therefore addresses more than the physical act of murder. It establishes a boundary around human life and reminds Israel that life was not theirs to treat as insignificant. The laws surrounding murder reinforced the seriousness of the command, distinguishing deliberate wrongdoing from accidental death and requiring accountability rather than allowing every case to be handled according to personal judgment.
We must examine our own hearts honestly. Do we allow resentment to shape how we see another person? Do we justify cruelty because we believe someone deserves it? Do we desire revenge when we have been wronged? Do we recognize the difference between seeking justice and taking matters into our own hands? These questions do not equate every failure of the heart with the crime of murder. They help us recognize the attitudes that can lead us to disregard the dignity and value of another person.
God’s command is clear: You shall not murder. Human life is not disposable, and anger, jealousy, hatred, or revenge does not give us the right to destroy it. Through this commandment and the laws that accompanied it, God established the seriousness of taking life and the responsibility His people had to uphold justice.
The sixth commandment reminds Israel that the life of another person carries weight. To murder is not simply to break a rule; it is to violate a boundary God established around human life. His people were called to recognize that boundary, take wrongdoing seriously, and refuse to treat the life of another as something they had the right to take at will.
