What is the meaning of Exodus 20:13?

Thou shalt not kill. (Exodus 20:13 KJV)

Thou shalt not kill. (Exodus 20:13 ASV)

Thou shalt not kill. (Exodus 20:13 DBY)

You shall not murder. (Exodus 20:13 WEB)

Thou dost not murder. (Exodus 20:13 YLT)

Interlinear

Thou shalt not kill. <ratsach> (Exodus 20:13 KJV)

Adam Clarke’s Commentary

THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT

Against  murder and cruelty.  

Verse 13.  Thou shalt not kill.] This commandment, which is general, prohibits murder of every kind.  1. All actions by which the lives of our fellow creatures may be abridged.  2. All wars for extending empire, commerce, &c.  3. All sanguinary laws, by the operation of which the lives of men may be taken away for offences of comparatively trifling demerit.  4. All bad dispositions which lead men to wish evil to, or meditate mischief against, one another; for, says the Scripture, He that hateth his brother in his heart is a murderer.  5. All want of charity to the helpless and distressed; for he who has it in his power to save the life of another by a timely application of succour, food, raiment, &c., and does not do it, and the life of the person either falls or is abridged on this account, is in the sight of God a murderer.  He who neglects to save life is, according to an incontrovertible maxim in law, the SAME as he who takes it away.  6. All riot and excess, all drunkenness and gluttony, all inactivity and slothfulness, and all superstitious mortifications and self-denials, by which life may be destroyed or shortened; all these are point-blank sins against the sixth commandment.

John Wesley’s Notes on the Old and the New Testament

Verse 13. Thou shalt not kill-Thou shalt not do any thing hurtful to the health, or life of thy own body, or any other’s. This doth not forbid our own necessary defence, or the magistrates putting offenders to death; but it forbids all malice and hatred to any, for he that hateth his brother is a murderer, and all revenge arising therefrom; likewise anger and hurt said or done, or aimed to be done in a passion; of this our Saviour expounds this commandment, Mt 5:22.

Patrick/Lowth/Whitby/Lowman Commentary

Thou shalt not kill. After the command about the respect due to parents, naturally follows the regard we ought to have to all other men who spring from them. And the greatest injury we can do another is to take away his life; whereby he is deprived of all the enjoyments of this world, and human society itself is also wounded, which cannot subsist if its innocent members cannot be safe. Innocent, is ay, for this commandment doth not hinder men from defending themselves from violence (Ex 22:2), nor forbid magistrates to punish those with death who commit crimes worthy of it; for this is to preserve the lives of other men (Ex 22:18-20).

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