The Biblical Difference Between Murder and Killing

The Bible makes a clear distinction between killing and murder.

The command in Exodus 20:13 translated as “Thou shalt not kill” is more accurately translated is “Thou shalt not murder.”

Ratsach is murder is the Hebrew word used in the Ten Commandments means the unauthorized, intentional, or wrongly taking of a human life.

Harag is general killing a Hebrew word for broader types of killing, including warfare or slaying animals.

The Bible treats certain types of killing as lawful rather than sinful murder:

• Self Defense: If a thief breaks into a home at night and is killed, the defender is not guilty of murder. Exodus 22:2 says, “If the thief is found breaking in, and is struck so that he dies, there shall be no guilt of bloodshed for him.

• Warfare: God sometimes commanded or permitted the Israelite army to fight in wars.
• Capital Punishment: The governing authorities had the right to execute people for serious crimes like premeditated murder. Genesis 9:6, “Whoever sheds man’s blood, his blood will by shed by man, for God made man in His own image.”
• Accidental Death: In the Old Testament there were “cities of refuge” where someone who killed another person by total accident could flee safely so they were not executed as a murderer. Numbers 35:22-25 says, “But if he shoved him suddenly without hostility, or hurled on him anything without lying in wait, or with any stone, by which a man may die, not seeing him, and cast it on him so that he died, and he was not his enemy and not seeking his harm, then the congregation shall judge between the striker and the avenger of blood according to these ordinances. The congregation shall restore him to his city of refuge, where he had fled. He shall dwell therein until the death of the high priest, who was anointed with the holy oil.”

Murder is the deliberate, unjust, and malicious destruction of an innocent human life. Because the Bible allows for capital punishment, self defense, and war, it doesn’t teach total pacifism. It guards the sanctity of human life by outlawing illegal and hateful homicide.