Does “Thou Shalt Not Kill” Preclude Every War?

Jesus said, “And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.” (Mt 24.6). We hear of wars all the time. When Jesus said we would hear of them, he wasn’t making a prophecy, he was stating a fact. Wars are a constant in human experience.

The most recent wars raise questions among Christians. That is, it has raised questions in our church, and no doubt we are not unique. What should we think about war? Should Christians participate? What about “thou shalt not kill” (Ex 20.13)?

In this article, I can’t answer all these questions. My focus is on the sixth commandment. From this discussion, we could naturally turn to a discussion of just war doctrine (just = justified). I’ll list the elements of just war doctrine and give a link to a good sermon on the subject by a good friend of P&D (and regular contributor), Chuck Phelps.

Among Christians, pacifists will point to the sixth commandment in their theology of pacifism. There is more to the doctrine than this one verse, but today I want to focus squarely on it so we can understand what it is and is not prohibiting.¹

The verse is one of the shortest in the Bible, four words in English, just two words in Hebrew. Some commentaries suggest we could translate it simply, “never murder” or “don’t kill.”

Key to understanding the commandment is the meaning of the underlying Hebrew, ratzach. You can see that the KJV translates it “kill.” If you compare other versions, you will see some translate it “murder.” Neither translation gets the full nuance of the word.

The standard Hebrew Lexicon says, “The verb, with the exception of Num 35.30, denotes illegal behaviour against the community which is always directed against an individual.”² The lexicon is perhaps a little too concise in its description. The “illegal behaviour” is when one or more individuals illegally put to death another individual. Phillip Ryken expands on this with, “The word ratzach is never used in the legal system or in the military. There are other Hebrew words for the execution of a death sentence or for the kind of killing that a soldier does in mortal combat. Nor is the word ratzach ever used for hunting and killing animals.”³

In other words, the sixth commandment prohibits illegal killing. What, then, constitutes illegal killing? Is there legal killing?

The term is used approximately 49 times in the Old Testament, beginning with Exodus 20.13. The second reference, Numbers 35.6 refers to the laws of the cities of refuge where someone guilty of manslaughter could flee and gain protection against execution.⁴ Manslaughter is illegal behaviour, just as murder is, but in Mosaic law, as in our own, the penalties differ. An accidental killing can be manslaughter, as well as criminal negligence. All these concepts are covered by “thou shalt not kill.”

Yet what about other killings? Executions clearly find Mosaic sanction; they are part and parcel of the law. The OT finds Israel and its kings called into action to kill Israel’s enemies in battle, with divine authorization and no condemnation. When some nation rises against Israel, God does not condemn Israel for responding in kind. In other words, neither capital punishment nor the prosecution of war are prohibited by the sixth commandment.

The bigger question we worry about is whether war is ever justified. We see that the sixth commandment does not prohibit it, but that is no blanket endorsement of any and all wars. Something else must come in play.

Various Christian thinkers laid out conditions for what is called “the Just War doctrine.” We won’t go into details here, but I’ll list the principles as I understand them:

1. final resort: Just war is not the first option on the table in a conflict between nations.
2. legitimate authorization: Individuals cannot wage war, nations wage war, and only duly constituted authority in a nation can cause a nation to go to war. (In the United States, Congress must declare war, the President has no authority to unilaterally go to war.)
3. just cause: The cause, or reason, for war must be righteous.
4. right intention: The intent for war must be right, an intention to absorb another nation into one’s own rarely could be considered just, if ever.
5. balance of foreseen consequences: Nations must take into consideration the consequences of their actions.
6. moderation of means: Nations may not use any force at their disposal, but sufficient force to accomplish just objectives.

Others have written on these principles quite well and at length, so I will leave you with just this summary. As I mentioned earlier, our friend Chuck Phelps recently preached a good message on this subject which I commend to you. You can find it here.

In troubling times, we need to look to the Scriptures and properly understand what they say. And we need to look up, for our redemption draws near! Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

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Don Johnson is the pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.

1. For a survey of pacifism, you can check this page on Wikipedia. [↩]
2. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, Hebrew-Aramaic and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Abridged BDB-Gesenius Lexicon) (Ontario, Canada: Online Bible Foundation, 1997), BibleWorks, v.8. — The exception, Num 35.30, says, “Whoso killeth any person, the murderer shall be put to death by the mouth of witnesses: but one witness shall not testify against any person to cause him to die.” There ratzach means “to execute, put to death.” [↩]
3. Philip Graham Ryken, Exodus: Saved for God’s Glory, ed. R. Kent Hughes, ESV edition (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2015), 616. [↩]
4. Num 35 has twenty uses of the term, almost half of all the references. A distinction is made here between the murderer and the manslayer, but the term is used of both. [↩]