Pleading the Fifth

The painter did it.

You shall not kill.

Brief and to the point. What could be simpler? Yet this commandment too has caused much disagreement. Is war prohibited? Is self-defense? What about killing animals, for food?

Many Hebrew scholars argue that the word translated “kill” here—retzach—properly means “murder.” Some Bible translations have the commandment as “You shall not murder.”

But this too is dubious, and troublesome. “Murder” is a legal term: “unlawfully kill.” This leaves the sin to the absolute discretion of the civil authority; which is not a reliable moral guide. Hitler killing Jews in Nazi Germany would be okay.

And the same word is used elsewhere in the Bible when it cannot mean “murder”: for example, it is used to describe actions of God.

Yet “kill” is also not accurate. Retzach cannot mean “kill,” in the English sense, for the Bible itself, and Exodus itself, presents killing in war and capital punishment as not just proper but at times commanded by God.

Perhaps, to get to the sense of the commandment, we need to back up to the fundamental question: why is murder wrong? We all know it is wrong, so that asking the question seems outrageous. But we need to ask: how do we know that killing is wrong?

After all, God kills everyone—sooner or later. He could have made the world differently; he did not.

And for the just, death is a reward. So killing a good person is not harming him or her.

We know that killing is wrong, I submit, because we know that, in the eyes of God, or from any objective view, all human beings are equal in basic worth. Accordingly, no one person has the right to kill another; that would be radically elevating self over other.

So the essential issue addressed by the commandment is a mortal human taking upon him or herself an action reserved to God.

Meaning killing out of self-will, as self-assertion.

Killing in war, or in self-defense, would be licit, given that one is killing under necessity or command. The war itself might be licit or illicit. Capital punishment could be licit, if necessary to preserve public order. But this is a dubious claim in modern times and ordinary circumstances. It might become licit in a time of war, emergency, or insurrection.

Killing of animals for food, or for other purposes, is licit, because animals are not our spiritual equals. Once you extend the commandment beyond fellow humans, you get into trouble. Is it murder, then, to swat a mosquito? To kill a cancer virus?

Obviously, human life often requires us to kill other creatures for our survival.

We should no doubt avoid cruelty to animals, and frivolous killing. Just as we should avoid excessive force in self-defense, or bloodthirsty methods in war.

For my part, speaking for myself, the commandment inspires me to be vegetarian. After all, I can survive quite comfortably in most situations without killing any sentient animals. So is it perhaps an expression of selfishness to do so?

The bulk of the Christian monastic tradition, at least, agrees.

But, outside of Lent and Fridays, the same obligation has never been considered general. It is good to be vegetarian, It is not necessary to be vegetarian to be good.