“You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13, NKJV)
When most people read the Ten Commandments, they feel confident that they have never murdered anyone, never done anything that this sixth commandment forbids. They are not only certain that they have never murdered, but some even think they are incapable of ever having any murderous thoughts. They would never be willing to murder anyone! Yet the opposite proves true, for literally all human beings. Literally all non-elect and elect souls on earth have sinned against the sixth-order commandments, and literally all are capable of murder, even from birth. Some may think they could never murder anyone, but this archetypal commandment also represents all the laws forbidding any intentional and internal essence of murder, including all malice and vengeance, or even the kind of apathy or negligence that can potentially or actually cause harm or death to another soul. It prohibits any form of unjust “hatred,” in the Semitic sense of this word. That is, the biblical concept of the word “hate” refers to “a lack of love.” And God’s sixth-order commands forbid God’s people to lack love for anyone, even “strangers” (immigrants). But these laws definitely forbid any active hatred of another soul, which is the seed of physical murder. Although one is expected to hate a sinner’s sins, including one’s own sins, the sixth-order laws expect God’s priesthood to do the work of nullifying all sins through the love of one’s spirit. God expects His church to humbly acknowledge their own sinfulness and accept the possibility that another sinner, even a murderer, may be an elect brother or sister. So any disdain for another soul, especially if it is based on unverified evidence, or any ill will towards anyone, especially for no valid reason, or even any mere indifference towards the needy and the lost, whom God calls us to lovingly, justly and equitably care about, are all acts of murder, since all such acts of “hatred” cause much harm and can even cause deaths. Furthermore, in reality, a mere mind of flesh can never claim to be truly free of guilt regarding any of these sixth-order laws of God.
I remember a well-off, solidly middle-class elder in an evangelical church who once insisted that he was incapable of murder. All I could tell him was that, from birth, he lived in a comfortable, nonviolent, middle-class home, was never abused nor bullied to any great extent, and had never felt a consistent, life-threatening, dehumanizing force from any kind of ruthless antagonist. From birth, he always had parents, teachers, the law, the police, the justice system and himself to advocate for him and protect him, since he had money and the power to be counted worthy of this privilege. But he would not feel the same way if he were always denied all these things. Since that supposed “elder” knew nothing about fighting the good fight, nor any other kind of fight for that matter, nor anything real about true compassion and justice in the face of deadly opposition, he also knew nothing about the temptation of Satan to physically, emotionally or spiritually murder anyone. It is the anger and hatred formed in the mind of deeply suffering flesh which is easily tempted to act unjustly, to murder others. And many have never truly known any real dehumanization by Satan’s children, since they have always stood on the sidelines, safe from the battlefield. Not being true soldiers in the field, not being holy nor passionately fervent for God and their fellow man, always being compliant in serving as safe citizens of Satan’s world order, promoting every financial and social evil under the sun, will cause the devil to leave them alone, at least with regards to the sixth-order commandments. But their world remains small, dark and empty. Since nothing disturbs their sleepy, little, self-centred world, they never know any temptation to murder. But neither do they know life. They live in a bubble, with friends and family members who are just like them, accepting the world order’s shallow precepts at face value, where all who reinforce their delusions are also manipulated and deluded souls like them.
Surely this attitude reveals the extraordinarily sheltered life that many Christians lead here. If any ignorant and unstable men came around, on a regular basis, to beat and persecute them, if they saw their women raped and children abused or kidnapped into slavery, if men slaughtered their beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord before their own eyes, if they were too poor and powerless to save their loved ones from abuse, and were not even able to provide food and medications for them, this commandment would mean much more to them. It would rebuke their very hearts and cause them to seek the power of God to overcome evil with good. Yet these horrors, and many more, are precisely what most of our elect brothers and sisters around the world face daily. And the sleepy middle-class churches do absolutely nothing to help them. So they, in reality, these churches murder those in the other churches through a biblical kind of “hatred,” making themselves guilty enough to be sent into eternal hell. Clearly, these so-called “Christians” do not understand the full implications of these sixth-order laws, nor what they do to others through apathy, how it is a sin to not do what should be done while they have been granted the ability to do it. By doing nothing to help the oppressed and persecuted, when it is in their power to do so, God calls them murderers. For their apathy works together with those who are actually spilling the physical blood of other souls. Their apathy is aiding and abetting those murderers. By not overcoming evil with good, by not helping those victims of sin, although God has granted them the ability and resources to do so, they partake in all those murders.
Before I continue, let me also point out that this commandment is not, “Thou shalt not [physically] kill [any human being nor any animal].” In the global context of the whole Bible, this command is forbidding murder, not killing. It is not commanding us to be vegan pacifists. “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven ... a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up” (Eccl. 3:1,3, ESV). God Himself commanded His people to kill animals and eat them, in the same way He commanded some animals to kill and eat other animals. God also commanded some males among His priesthood of Israel to become soldiers or “policemen” when they became 20 years old. Then He commanded these soldiers to kill those who threatened and killed the innocent. The works of certain times, such as during a just, necessary war, or in opposition to other sinners who threaten the lives and well-being of His people, may require killing. Of course, God wants us to spare our enemies and care for them whenever possible, if it does not endanger the innocent in the process. However, there are times when it is necessary to kill those who murder or oppress other souls. Remember how God commanded His church to kill the most psychopathic child murderers in Canaan at one time. On the other hand, God called the prophet Elisha to spare Israel’s pagan enemies, since those enemies did not intentionally oppose the true God, but merely followed their king’s orders. God simply struck the enemy soldiers temporarily blind. And, when they were taken captive, God did not allow any to be killed. Instead, God asked Israel to feed them, then let them to return to their king (II Kings 6:18-23). God ordains times to kill or save, but never murder.
Clearly, God did not say: “You shall not kill.” This commandment is: “You shall not murder.” It seems that everyone today wants to make this commandment mean whatever they personally want it to mean. But we must be careful to fully understand what the Author, God Himself, intended it to mean. The Hebrew word, rawtsakh, means “to dash in pieces ... to murder ... a crushing” (Davidson). Since this sixth commandment refers to a physical, emotional or spiritual kind of crushing, which requires intentionally applied force, and the context of this commandment is a list of sins against other human beings, it can only refer to the physical, emotional or spiritual crushing of a human life through a deliberate and malicious intent to take that life. In our day, some animal activists have put up billboards with “Thou shalt not kill,” in big bold print. So they imply that this commandment refers to any act of killing an animal for food, or for any other reason. Others also say that any kind of war is breaking this commandment. Many state that capital punishment breaks this commandment too. Well, at times, they are partly right. The killing of animals can be a sin, if it involves the unjust treatment of those animals, or when that killing is not done compassionately and for right reasons, when certain practices of raising animals for food are cruel and degrade the spirits of life in those animals. For one of God’s first commandments to all mankind was to care for His creatures and the garden of His earth. Also, all unjust causes of war, such as greed or blind ambition, are thoroughly condemned by God, and are acts of mass murder. Then we must not allow capital punishment for anyone except unrepentant psychopaths, since they cannot be safely kept from harming, mutilating and murdering their guards or other souls. If mercy can be granted, without causing the threat of any real harm or death to others, it should be granted. If it takes a few years of prison time in order to be able to determine if mercy can be granted to a repentant murderer, we should take that time to find out if that mercy can be granted. Yet God did not forbid the killing of animals, every war and capital punishment for psychopaths. We need to realize that the death of the flesh is not the end of any living creature’s existence. There is eternal life for all the animals and plants we kill, even in the real bodies and homes they were destined to possess. Their lives began on earth, and the elect are to experience those lives together with them. But we are also granted permission to send them home, to use their earthly bodies for the needs of other human beings and other living things. Then we too will join them in heaven. Only the non-elect, the children of Satan who want to be gods, will not join us there.
The sixth-order commandments, like all other commandments of God, are far more complex, and require far more wisdom to comprehend and apply, than most of the lazy and irrational churches like to admit. Through ignorance, some animal rights activists actually cheer on the Hindu radicals who murder innocent Muslim dairy and beef farmers, thinking those farmers deserve to die because they kill cows. Then we see war protesters vilify already suffering soldiers who fight in wars to defend the freedoms and rights of those protesters, soldiers who must also deal with PTSD or other health problems for the rest of their lives. Also, we see many people demand that all capital punishment must cease, and defend the lives of psychopaths who maim, kill and emotionally scar prison guards and other souls, whenever they can, because those psychopaths enjoy those horrifying deeds. Now we must take the time to understand exactly what God calls murder, and how the sixth-order laws only prohibits physical, emotional and spiritual murder, not all killing, and certainly not an ordinate killing of animals for food. We need to understand the multifaceted implications of these laws, and comprehend all the spiritual principles or implications, since all God’s laws are ultimately spiritual.
First, the sixth commandment is regarding a malicious and intentional killing of a human being, not the killing of an animal—although there are also sixth-order laws that prohibit the abuse of animals, or killing animals cruelly, or killing animals for pleasure. And, as it is in all God’s laws, there are different degrees or punishments for different kinds of murder, depending on how malicious the intent or motive was, or on how ruthless the sin might be. For instance, we see different degrees of theft in God’s Law. “If a man steals an ox or a sheep, and slaughters it or sells it, he shall restore five oxen for an ox and four sheep for a sheep” (Ex. 22:1, NKJV). Notice how the penalty for stealing a more valuable ox is greater than the penalty for stealing a less valuable sheep. For the one who steals an ox—which farmers used to pull plows and for many other tasks, to earn their livelihood, as well as for meat when the ox was too old to work—would cause more harm to the victim of theft. Thus, the sin stealing an ox was considered to be more sinful than stealing a sheep. And this “case law” confirms the general principle that we should judge each individual sin according to the degree of malicious harm the intentional sinner caused, or the extent of a sinner’s apathy and negligence with regards to his victim. The more harm a sinner intentionally did to the victim, the greater was his sin.
Of course, when most souls were so poor that they could not afford to pay back even one sheep or one ox, this meant that most of the thieves caught stealing an ox or sheep had to put in an enormous number of work hours to pay back the amount owing to their victims. So this theft carried a very steep penalty. Nonetheless, God did not require a thief to spend any time in a prison, since that would only dehumanize him and prevent him from doing honest work. And, if a thief was put in a prison with violent criminals, he might possibly even be raped by the psychopaths there, and would basically need to become more ruthless in his crimes to survive. So a thief merely had to give his time or resources to pay off his debts to his victim, while still being allowed more than enough time and resources to care for all that was needed by his family and himself. And, although theft caused much distrust in his community, and caused some people to spend many wasted hours and resources to prevent theft or to catch thieves, his sin was only considered to be a minor sin. And the killing of the stolen animal was only considered to be a sin against the eight-order laws. It was not considered to be a sin against the sixth-order laws—unless he stole life-sustaining property which had directly caused death, or unless he murdered during the act of stealing. Thus, all who have hung livestock thieves, including many ranchers and judges throughout history, are murderers in God’s eyes. But most livestock thieves were not murderers in God’s eyes, and they committed relatively minor sins.
The lesser sixth-order laws are those regarding threats, physical violence, deaths through negligence or actual murder. For instance, this is one of the sixth-order laws: “He who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death. But if he did not lie in wait, but God delivered him into his hand, then I will appoint for you a place where he may flee. But if a man acts with premeditation against his neighbor, to kill him with guile, you shall take him from My altar, that he may die” (Ex. 21:1214, NKJV). So, the translation of the phrase, “shall surely be put to death,” clearly does not mean he “shall surely be put to death.” It actually means that, after a fair trial, the kind God’s Law demanded for everyone accused of a sin or crime, “it is definite that he might be put to death,” but only if the following criteria are also factors in killing the victim. Thus, the translation of this verse is wrong.
What God is saying here is that, if a man kills another man during a heated argument, the killer is less guilty, although he has still sinned in his anger and must learn to stop sinning. Yet he should not be put to death. For he did not “lie in wait.” It was not premeditated murder. And it was almost an accident that the man died, as though God delivered the victim into the killer’s hands. Instead of executing the killer, that killer was to be exiled to a place that had been appointed by God. It was a place of order and justice, a place run by the Levitical priesthood, where the sinner could live, learn and work, where he could live with and provide for his family. Actually, it was a place that most of our “prisons” should be modelled after. We sometimes need more secure holding cells or prisons for dangerous criminals, but all others should be put in places where they can live normally, under the supervision of responsible teachers and judges. And, in the New Covenant times, Jesus may choose to teach a man’s spirit directly, in far more effective ways. Then the repentance of a man will bear true fruits of love, attempts to restore what he destroyed, which is something only God can do when it involves the death of another soul’s flesh. Also, the principle of this law exonerates a soldier who kills an enemy who is trying to kill him, when God delivers the enemy “into his hand,” and he kills the enemy before the enemy kills him. This is not murder. In God's Law, a man was only considered a murderer “with premeditation” and “with guile.” If both were not found in the man who killed the other person, it was not murder. A killer was not to be executed unless: (1) he planned to kill his victim and did it intentionally, with “guile,” with a malicious motive or a ruthless lack of concern regarding the victim’s life, such as causing the victim’s death through intentional negligence in order to save money or to gain something for oneself; and (2) if the accusers prove this “premeditation” and “guile,” prove that he did indeed have a motive to murder the victim, and that he plotted the murder through that malicious intent, or that the accused intentionally refused to take any reasonable steps to prevent the victim’s death, and where that proof is supported by at least two or three reliable witnesses or pieces of evidence, and where all the witnesses or interpreters of the evidence are thoroughly cross-examined. If one cannot provide solid proof that a man did the crime with “guile” or malicious intent, or that it was not done through the killer’s plotting, then the killer could not be considered to be a murderer, not according to God’s Law. That killer may be held partially guilty for some of his actions, and suffer some kind of lesser penalty fitting his crime, but not executed. And, in the New Covenant times, even an intentional murderer may repent under the right circumstances. Therefore, even an intentional murderer must be granted the time and opportunity to repent, in a right teaching environment that might lead to a true repentance of the heart. For God’s Law allowed true repentance to make an intentional sin into an unintentional sin, in a way that could be forgiven and win atonement, that is, through a sacrifice for the sin, which Jesus amply provided on the cross.
Therefore, Jesus would want us to put even true murderers in prison for a time, until we can assess whether or not that murderer can repent into the truth, into a life that is not a threat to anyone else. Only if a murderer proves to be a psychopath, should he or she be executed. But it is definitely clear that Jesus does not want us to put all kinds of sinners and criminals together in the vengeful prison systems we now have. If we incarcerate petty criminals together with psychopaths and keep minor sinners in an environment which dehumanizes them, which only tends to make them more criminally minded than they were to begin with, in a system where the psychopathic inmates rule their very lives, and where even many of the ruthless guards contribute to this process of making them more criminal, we are sinning against God. Such prison systems are clearly unjust and must be radically reformed, to teach just love to those souls who have the potential to learn to love, as God intended his priesthood to do through all their judgments. On the other hand, capital punishment for ruthless psychopaths, who enjoy hurting and killing, who have absolutely nothing inside to enable any kind of repentance into the truth, is not unjust. Nor should anyone say soldiers are murderers, if they are fighting in just ways—as an organized, justly governed body fighting soldiers in another army. But if soldiers abuse their power and authority to kill the innocent, even if a psychopath commanded them to do so, they may be tried as murderers. For a just army does no harm to civilians or captive enemy soldiers. A soldier must carefully avoid harming or killing the innocent, in an army that only fights for the protection of a people who are unjustly attacked, or a people who cannot defend themselves.
There is a tremendous amount of injustice and evil in this world. And sometimes force is needed to protect the victims of that injustice. But God demands that all evil must be overcome by good, by a truly just and loving kinds of works, never through evil, never in revenge. Clear biblical principles must be rightly and wisely followed according to God’s intended meaning of all His laws. In fact, a war may not need to involve any killing at all, if the enemy surrenders before any battle takes place. And this is why wise and just words, with sound reasoning, always must be the first and foremost weapons of every godly army. Then compassionate deeds must be the second. For, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in doing so, you will heap coals of fire on his head” (Rom. 12:20, cf., Prov. 25:21-22). There is nothing that weakens the power held by despotic psychopaths over their armies as much as just and compassionate deeds done by the victims whom those armies were sent to destroy. Weapons that kill the flesh are the last to be used. For the whole purpose of every truly just war is to build peace and justice for all, not to work death and destruction.
God commanded Israel to go to war immediately after He freed them from Egypt, after God justly destroyed the lives and wealth of Egyptians who would not listen to God’s reasonable demands for justice. And the Canaanite lands which those Israelites were to conquer were indeed very wicked and unjust, a murdering and grossly immoral people, hardened against repentance, who had spurned the prophets and even the angels God sent them over a period of more than 400 years. Of course, some Canaanites were not as bad as others. Thus, God spared them, including all Kenites, some Hittites and the Gentile tribes who lived relatively normal lives. But the city states that routinely practised child sacrifices during sexual orgies, had sex with animals and children, took every opportunity to enslave and plunder more innocent tribes through unjust warfare, tortured, murdered and strove to commit every kind of sin under the sun, were to be utterly destroyed and burned. Not even their children, livestock or grain was to be spared. God even told Israel to slaughter the babies because, in those days, if a child grew up knowing he or she belonged to a certain people, the child would also assume that the demonic gods worshipped by one’s parents were to be one’s own gods too. Besides, the Israelites were living in a transient state, without food, shelter, time or resources to care for the numerous children belonging to their enemies. Since the Israelites would not be willing to take those children into their tents, especially because those child might someday follow violent, immoral, demonic gods someday, the children were not left to die in the wilderness. They were killed. Still, God commanded Israel to spare the Canaanites who were not thoroughly evil. Some of those other
Canaanites were simply conquered and allowed to live as they had always lived. Many of those other Gentiles even became Israel's allies, or converted to Judaism and merged with the people of Israel.
To keep the land pure, God also demanded that Israel’s authorities must punish or execute Gentile murderers who rebelled against Him, the extreme lawbreakers among Gentiles living in their land. If any Gentile intentionally killed, raped, enslaved or committed very harmful, obvious sins through malicious motives, but would not repent, Israel punished them. Gentiles living in the land of Israel were not to be judged by the whole of God’s Law, like the members of God’s church of Israel, since the Gentiles did not worship the God of Israel, and their spirits were not bound in a covenant with the God of Israel. Yet God required Gentiles to obey a minimum set of His natural laws, in order to maintain order, safety and peace in His land. Now some say it is murder to execute a murderer. But we must realize that God's Law allowed judges to show mercy and forgive sins, even murder, if there was a sign of true repentance, and after a thorough investigation into both the crime and the inner motives or intentions of the accused. So a sentence of death was only for the murderers without any repentance, who manifest the kind of heart that would surely murder again, who were a danger to the people. However, the Gentiles who could learn to respect human life and God’s creation were to be spared. Only those who willingly oppressed and killed, without any inner conscience to temper their evil inclinations, were executed, to free Israel from the constant danger of psychopathic neighbours.
If the due process of the Law finds a person guilty of murder, but also finds that the person will not likely intentionally endanger or harm anyone else in the community, since the circumstances that led that one to murder were unusually strong temptations, then judges can show mercy, perhaps giving a short term of forced supervision or incarceration until the circumstances causing that one to murder are eliminated and the murderer is taught to repent into right ways of living. This is required by God.
For instance, I once knew a man who murdered a bully who was continually mocking and deriding him, day after day, a bully who publicly bragged about repeatedly committing adultery with that man’s wife. So that man fell into a deeper state of depression each day, and began to drink. One day, the bully provoked him while he was drunk. Then the man snapped. He waited outside the bar until the bully came out, then ran over him with his truck, backed up and drove over him again and again. But this murderer was otherwise an ordinary, stable, working man, and never hurt anyone in his life before that day. So he would likely never hurt anyone again, if his circumstances improved, if he was taught how to handle his problems with help, in legal ways. So the judge, after the police did a very thorough investigation, and found his claims to be true, gave him a lighter sentence. On the other hand, I remember a psychopath who plotted to destroy or kill anyone who got in his way. If he could get away with any crime, no matter how much it hurt others, he did that crime. He had absolutely no conscience and lied to get away with all his crimes, then tried to justify everything he did, or framed other innocent souls for his crimes, or transferred the blame of the crimes to the dupes who followed him, sending others to prison for the crimes he himself committed. When he was finally caught, he spent several years in prison, where he threatened and harmed prison guards. Then he escaped and killed a two people, a teenager and his mother, just to get a few dollars for his escape. Later, he was caught again. And while in prison, he framed other innocent inmates, injured and tried to kill guards, or abused souls whenever he felt like it. Therefore, in God's eyes, those who kept this psychopath alive were actually equally responsible for all his crimes and murders after he was first incarcerated.
We should recognize that God did not always consider one who caused an accidental death, or death through extenuating circumstances, to be the kind of murderer who deserved the death penalty. And, if a person accidentally killed someone, but had taken reasonable care to prevent injury, damage or death, that one was not to be condemned at all. Only if a person accidentally killed another through wilful negligence, was that one to be judged as guilty, and could possibly receive the death penalty if there was no repentance—such as if one strove to hide and justify one’s own wilful negligence that was motivated by greed, who did not provide safety measures for one’s workers in an attempt to save money, and was apathetic about the pain of the deceased soul’s family and friends. This principle is illustrated in many of the sixth-order laws of God, such as this: “If an ox gores a man or a woman to death, then the ox shall surely be stoned and its flesh shall not be eaten [stoning an animal to death made the animal unclean and unfit to eat, indicating it was an act of justice, not for food]; but the owner of the ox shall be acquitted. But if the ox tended to thrust with its horn in times past, and it has been made known to his owner, and he has not kept it confined, so that it has killed a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned and its owner also shall be put to death” (Ex. 21:28-29, NKJV). This “case law” illustrates the principle that anyone who wilfully endangers other lives, through one’s own greed or other impure motives, might be guilty of murder. Of course, as always, each individual case had to be thoroughly examined in a court of law. One could not automatically accuse everyone who allowed a deadly or dangerous situation to exist without providing absolutely perfect safety for all. Not everyone who does not destroy a dangerous entity in their possession is guilty of murder when someone has died because of that entity. However, if a person did not do what a loving, responsible person would do in the same circumstances, with the same resources, but wilfully endangered other lives, without caring about anyone else’s life, that loveless, ruthless soul can indeed be charged with murder and executed.
Remember, this was a case law (Ex. 21:28-29), establishing principles to be followed in all similar judgments, applicable to any circumstances. So, if a person knew anything was dangerous, but failed to provide reasonable protection from that danger, or did not destroy that dangerous thing, he clearly should be held responsible for any harm or death it caused. If the negligent one shows no concern for others, if one was intentionally negligent because one wanted to gain a greater profit, then strove to hide or justify one’s negligence at the expense of the injured or killed one and the community, the wilfully negligent one could be a psychopath who may need to be executed. And God here allowed the death penalty as the maximum sentence for such a crime involving death. Yet God’s minimum sentence was, as always, no penalty. If a man tried his best to prevent some kind of danger from harming or killing anyone, and was deeply sorry about a soul who was harmed or killed by that dangerous thing, openly confessing the truth about all that occurred, he could be forgiven and set free without any penalty at all. Of course, most cases involve some errors, but not total negligence. So a sentence for a negligent one is often be between the minimum and this maximum. The principle of these laws from God are not new. They have been practised in the world for centuries. People still follow them, although the west now allows psychopaths to live, and even elects some as presidents. Yet these just principles were new to the pagans. Before Jews and Christians taught God’s Word and laws to the world, most pagans sought revenge for any kind of death, even for any accidental death.
God also legislated the formati