Exodus 20:13 You shall not kill. I. THE ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLE OF THIS COMMANDMENT. 1. In preferring the old Prayer Book reading, "Thou shalt do no murder," the revisers have done well. Killing may be no murder. The right of self-defence belongs both to the individual and the community. 2. Human life is sacred, but not so sacred as the end for which it is given, viz., that man created in the image of God should do His will. That is the paramount obligation. The will of God may make it right for us to lay down our lives, or right to defend them at the cost of death to others. II. THE MOSAIC ENUNCIATION OF THIS COMMANDMENT. 1. It is inconceivable that the great law-giver can have read it in the sense of an absolute "Thou shalt not kill."(1) If he had condemned killing in self-defence, he could not have formed the regulation in Exodus 22:2. (2) If he had condemned killing by public justice, he would not have ordained capital punishment, as he did not only for murder, but also for kidnapping, insolence to parents, adultery, sorcery, blasphemy, and Sabbath-breaking. (3) If he had condemned killing in war, he would neither have engaged in it himself nor have left it as a solemn legacy to his successor. (4) Against actual murder the law of Moses was uncompromising (see Deuteronomy 19:11-13; Exodus 21:14.) 2. In this stern impartiality the Hebrew legislator rose head and shoulders, not only above his contemporaries, but above generations very far subsequent to him. Even in Christian England, and in our own day, we tolerate in connection with many offences, an alternative of "fine or imprisonment?; a bad remainder of feudal times, which lets the rich man lightly off, but crushes his poorer neighbour — an inequality with which Moses could not be charged. But he went further than this. He laid down the principle that criminal carelessness and selfish indifference to human life ought to be regarded as tantamount to murder (see Exodus 21:28, 29). If our own British laws were as clear as this in their denunciation of criminal carelessness and wicked recklessness of human life, it would be vastly to the public advantage. What of the jerry-builders heaping rotting garbage into the foundations of houses, putting cheap arsenicated papers on the walls, and scamping drains that they may net exorbitant rents at the price of human lives? What of smug railway-directors sweeping in golden dividends, but leaving poor signalmen to toil for such long hours that exhausted nature muddles the points, and horrible collisions follow? What of the chemist who adulterates his drugs, the inn-keeper who puts damp sheets on the traveller's bed, and the butcher who sends diseased meat into market? The plain truth is, that these people are murderers. We are yet as to legislation a long way behind the brave old ruler who said out forcibly what such criminals should suffer; but our moral sense sees clearly that they inflict death upon innocent people, a death as sure as if they had put knife to the throats or revolver to the hearts of their victims, a death often slower and more cruel in its torture. III. THE SAVIOUR'S COMMENT UPON THIS WORD (see Matthew 5:21, 22). Nothing condemned by Moses as a breach of the sixth word is excused by Jesus. Instead of loosing, He tightens the reins. He tracks the lurking murder in many an unsuspected heart. He marks three degrees of murderous guilt, all of which may be manifested without a blow being struck: secret anger; spiteful jeer; open, unrestrained outburst of violent, abusive speech. IV. THE POSITIVE INTERPRETATION OF THIS COMMANDMENT will lift us to the true platform of Christian morality by transfiguring it into a law of mercy. The same essential principle which forbids murder ordains brotherhood. (W. J. Woods B. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Thou shalt not kill. |
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