Exodus 20:13 Meaning: You Shall Not Murder Explained
Short answer: Exodus 20:13 says, "You shall not murder." The Hebrew verb here is not a general word for killing; it refers to the unlawful, intentional taking of a human life. The command rests on the value God himself places on human beings, who are made in his image, as Genesis 9:6 makes plain: "Whoever sheds man's blood, his blood will be shed by man, for God made man in his own image." Jesus did not cancel the command but deepened it, locating murder's root in anger and contempt (Matthew 5:21-22). The New Testament also treats governing authority as God-ordained for restraining wrongdoing (Romans 13:1-4). So the commandment forbids murder, protects life, and calls God's people to a heart-level reverence for the neighbor.
What the Hebrew word in Exodus 20:13 actually forbids
The sixth commandment is short: "You shall not murder." The brevity is part of its force. It does not read like a legal code with exceptions and procedures attached; it states a boundary and leaves the case law to passages like Numbers 35 and Deuteronomy 19. The word translated murder is ratsach, and its ordinary sense in the Hebrew Bible is the wrongful, intentional killing of a human being. It is the word used for premeditated killing and for the killer who flees to a city of refuge. That is why careful readers distinguish this command from the broader idea of killing in general.
This distinction matters because Israel's own law required killing in some settings. A man who struck his neighbor treacherously and then fled to the altar was to be taken and put to death (Exodus 21). Numbers 35 sets out the difference between a murderer and someone who killed another unintentionally, providing cities of refuge for the latter. Deuteronomy 19 repeats that provision and insists the innocent must not be handed over to die. If ratsach forbade every taking of life without exception, those statutes would contradict the commandment they are meant to apply.
So the commandment is not an abstract statement that life does not matter; it is a prohibition of the specific act of murder. It treats human life as something not to be seized by private hands for private ends. It assumes that life belongs to God, who gives it, and that no individual has the right to cancel another person's life because of anger, greed, jealousy, or convenience. The command does not leave room for the view that a person's life is mine to end when it becomes inconvenient or when I feel wronged.
At the same time, we should not press the word into a narrow technical slot that lets us ignore the command's spirit. The same Law that forbids murder also demands care for the vulnerable, the foreigner, the widow, and the poor. A person can keep the letter by never lifting a hand and still live in a way that destroys others, as the prophets repeatedly charge Israel. The commandment forbids the act, but it does not permit us to treat human life lightly in any form. It establishes a baseline of reverence for the image of God.
Made in God's image: the reason the command carries weight
Genesis 9:6 supplies the rationale the commandment assumes: "Whoever sheds man's blood, his blood will be shed by man, for God made man in his own image." The reason murder is so serious is not merely that it harms society or deprives a family; it is that the victim bears the image of God. To attack a human life is to attack something God has stamped with his own likeness. That is why the penalty attached to murder in Genesis is so severe, and why the command sits naturally among the Ten Commandments alongside the prohibitions of idolatry and blasphemy.
This image language runs back to Genesis 1, where humanity is made in God's likeness and given dominion over the earth. The creation account establishes that human dignity is not conferred by ability, usefulness, or social standing. It is given by God at creation. The command therefore protects the weak as much as the strong, the poor as much as the powerful, the unborn, the elderly, the disabled, and the stranger. Any view of human worth that treats some lives as more expendable than others has already begun to erode the ground on which the sixth commandment stands.
The image of God also explains why murder is a capital matter in Israel's law. Genesis 9:6 ties the taking of a life to the fact that the victim reflects God. To destroy that image is not a private wrong between two families; it is an assault on God's own order. This is not a claim that human courts always judge rightly; the Bible is honest about miscarriages of justice. It is a claim about the gravity of the act. The severity of the penalty reflects the value of what is taken, not the worth of the killer's rage or grievance.
For the Christian, this means the sixth commandment is not merely a rule about violence; it is a summons to see people as God sees them. The person who annoys me, the person who wrongs me, the person whose life seems inconvenient to mine, all bear the divine image. That truth is the foundation of the command, and it is the reason Jesus can treat contempt as a moral matter and not merely a matter of manners. Where the image of God is honoured, murder is unthinkable; where it is despised, the command becomes a formality easily worked around.
Jesus and the inward reach of the sixth commandment
In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says, as Matthew 5:21-22 says, "You have heard that it was said to the ancient ones, 'You shall not murder;' and 'Whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.'" He then extends the command: Matthew 5:22 says, "But I tell you that everyone who is angry with his brother without a cause will be in danger of the judgment." The point is not that the sixth commandment was wrong, but that it was being read too narrowly. Jesus identifies the root from which murder grows: anger, insult, and contempt toward a brother. The external act is the fruit; the heart is the soil.
Notice how specific Jesus is. He does not merely say that murder is wrong; he names the progression. Anger is the first step, then contemptuous speech, then the act itself. The one who calls his brother worthless is already standing in the same line as the murderer, even if his hands are clean. This is a searching word for every reader, because most of us have never committed murder but all of us have nursed anger and spoken dismissively about people made in God's image. Jesus is not adding a new burden; he is showing how deeply the command always reached.
This teaching does not erase the difference between anger and murder. Scripture never treats a flash of frustration as equivalent to taking a life. Jesus distinguishes the two even as he links them. But the link is real. The same self-centredness that makes another person an obstacle rather than a neighbour is present in both. If we only obey the commandment at the level of the hand, we will have obeyed a command Jesus refuses to leave that way. He calls his disciples to deal with the heart before the act ever has a chance to form.
The practical shape of that call is reconciliation, which Jesus goes on to describe in the same passage. The command against murder becomes a command to seek peace with the brother I have wronged, to settle matters quickly, and to refuse to let contempt take root. This does not mean that every conflict is my fault or that peace always depends on me alone; faithful Christians differ about how far reconciliation can go when the other party refuses. But it does mean the sixth commandment, rightly read, is not satisfied by merely not killing anyone. It calls for a life that honours the image of God in speech, attitude, and treatment.
Justice, government, and the restraint of evil
Romans 13:1-4 teaches that governing authority is established by God and bears the sword to restrain wrongdoing. Paul writes, as Romans 13:1-4 says, "Let every soul be in subjection to the higher authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those who exist are ordained by God." The passage goes on to say that the ruler is God's servant for good and does not bear the sword in vain. Whatever else this text means, it assumes that the restraint of violent wrong is a real function of civil government, not a violation of the sixth commandment.
This is consistent with the Old Testament, where the same Law that forbids murder also establishes courts, witnesses, and procedures for determining guilt. Numbers 35 and Deuteronomy 19 do not abolish justice; they regulate it so that the innocent are protected and the guilty are not simply released. Moses is told to set apart cities of refuge so that someone who kills unintentionally is not put to death by an avenger. The law is careful, procedural, and concerned with truth. It treats the taking of life as a serious matter to be judged, not a private matter to be settled by whoever is angriest.
At the same time, Scripture is not naive about rulers. The same Bible that calls government God's servant also records kings who shed innocent blood and prophets who denounced them. Paul is describing the purpose of the office, not promising that every official will act justly. Christians have disagreed, and still disagree, about the precise limits of state power, about war, and about capital punishment; those debates are real and should not be papered over. What Romans 13 does establish is that the sixth commandment does not make all use of force by lawful authority identical to murder.
For the individual believer, the implication is twofold. First, I should support and pray for just order rather than treating every exercise of authority with suspicion. Second, I should not hide behind authority to escape the commandment's claim on my own conduct. The government bears the sword; I am not the government. My calling is to live peaceably, to refuse private vengeance, and to trust God with justice. Romans 12 forbids me to repay evil for evil and calls me to overcome evil with good. The sixth commandment and the call to peace belong together.
The death penalty passages and how to read them honestly
Genesis 9:6 and several passages in the Law attach the death penalty to murder. Genesis 9:6 says, "Whoever sheds man's blood, his blood will be shed by man, for God made man in his own image." Numbers 35 distinguishes carefully between the murderer and the one who killed without intent, and it refuses to accept a ransom for the life of a murderer. Deuteronomy 19 sets out the same concern from the side of the accused, warning against condemning the innocent. The passages are not bloodthirsty; they are careful, and they treat life as too valuable to be handled casually in either direction.
Faithful Christians have read these texts in different ways. Some hold that the death penalty remains a fitting and biblically warranted response to murder, grounded in the value of the image of God and the seriousness of the crime. Others argue that the coming of Christ and the new covenant community have changed how God's people relate to civil justice, and that the church's calling is now to bear witness to mercy and restoration rather than to administer death. Both positions appeal to Scripture, and both can be held by people who take the sixth commandment seriously. The command itself does not settle the policy question by itself.
What the passages do establish is that God takes murder with the utmost seriousness. They do not permit the conclusion that human life can be discarded when it is inconvenient, nor do they give private individuals licence to take vengeance. Numbers 35 explicitly protects the person who killed unintentionally, and Deuteronomy 19 explicitly protects the innocent from false accusation. The concern running through both is that justice be done truthfully, with the image of God in view on both sides. That concern should shape how we speak about these matters today.
It is also worth noting what these passages do not say. They do not say that every killing is murder, and they do not say that the state may kill for any reason it chooses. They set murder apart as a distinct and grave act. When Christians debate modern questions of war, policing, and punishment, they are applying these texts to situations the texts did not directly address, and humility is appropriate. What is not open to question is the value of the human being, made in God's image, and the seriousness with which God regards the shedding of innocent blood.
What the sixth commandment does not mean
One common misreading treats the commandment as a blanket prohibition of all killing, including lawful force, self-defence, and the work of judges. That reading cannot be squared with the rest of the Mosaic Law, which commands capital punishment for certain crimes, directs Israel in warfare, and provides for the defence of one's household. It also cannot be squared with Romans 13, where the ruler bears the sword as God's servant. The commandment forbids murder, not every use of the sword. Reading it as absolute is not more faithful to the text; it is less faithful to the whole canon.
A second misreading treats the commandment as merely external, so that a person who has never physically killed anyone has fully kept it. Jesus explicitly rejects that reading. In Matthew 5:21-22 he traces murder back to anger and contempt, and he warns that these carry their own danger of judgment. A clean record at the level of the hand is not the same as a clean heart. The command reaches into how I speak about people, how I treat those who wrong me, and whether I regard my neighbour as a bearer of God's image or as an obstacle to my comfort.
A third misreading is selective application. Some who oppose abortion strongly can be indifferent to the elderly, the disabled, the prisoner, or the refugee. Some who speak passionately about violence in the streets can speak with contempt about those they disagree with. Some who emphasise social justice can treat the unborn as an abstraction. The sixth commandment cuts across every political and social line. It protects the image of God in every human being, and it calls for consistency in how we defend and honour that image.
A fourth misreading treats the commandment as a reason for passivity in the face of evil. If life is sacred, then protecting life is not optional; it is part of what it means to honour the command. That may mean intervening to help someone in danger, advocating for the vulnerable, or working for just laws. The command forbids murder, but it does not forbid courage. The same God who says, "You shall not murder," also calls his people to defend the weak and to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.
Pastoral application: guarding the heart and the neighbour
The sixth commandment is a gift before it is a restriction. It tells us that the God who made us cares about the safety of the person next door, the person in the next country, and the person who has no one to speak for them. It sets a boundary around human life that no private anger, no economic interest, and no social convenience may cross. In a world that often treats people as problems to be managed or costs to be minimised, the command restates a truth we are prone to forget: human beings are not disposable.
For most readers, the practical struggle is not the act of murder but the anger and contempt Jesus names. The command calls us to examine our speech, our resentment, and the way we talk about people we dislike. It calls us to forgive as we have been forgiven, to pursue reconciliation where it is possible, and to refuse the small murders of reputation and dignity that take place in gossip and mockery. These are not trivial matters in light of Matthew 5. They are the soil in which the act grows, and Jesus tells us to deal with the soil.
It also calls us to examine how we treat the vulnerable. The unborn, the sick, the elderly, the disabled, the foreigner, and the prisoner all bear the image of God. A church that takes the sixth commandment seriously will care about their safety and dignity, not only about avoiding violence in its own members. That care will look different in different contexts, and Christians will disagree about policy, but the direction is clear. The command protects life, and the people of God should be known for protecting it.
Finally, the command points us to the One who is himself the image of the invisible God. In him, the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and he gave his life rather than taking it. The sixth commandment is not the last word; it is a signpost pointing to a kingdom where life is honoured, anger is put away, and the meek inherit the earth. Until that kingdom comes, the command remains a guardrail for a fallen world, and a call for God's people to walk in love rather than in the way of Cain.
Biblical fidelity check
What Exodus 20:13 and its related passages establish is that the intentional, unlawful taking of a human life is forbidden by God, and that the reason is the divine image borne by every person. They establish that God takes murder seriously and that he has given civil authority a role in restraining evil. They do not establish that every use of force is murder, nor do they settle every modern question about war, policing, or punishment. Godly people have differed on those applications, and it does no service to the text to pretend otherwise.
A common misreading treats the commandment as forbidding killing in every circumstance, so that any exercise of the sword is sin. That reading fails because the same Law that gives the command also commands capital punishment for certain crimes and directs Israel in warfare, and because Romans 13 explicitly says the ruler does not bear the sword in vain. Another misreading treats the command as merely external, so that outward compliance is enough. Jesus rejects that in Matthew 5:21-22 by rooting murder in anger and contempt. The command reaches the heart, not only the hand.
Other passages that speak to Exodus 20:13
The sixth commandment does not stand alone. It rests on the creation of humanity in God's image, a theme developed from the opening chapters of Scripture and reflected in studies of What Do the Creation Days in Genesis 1 Mean? and Creation stories of the ancient Near East and Genesis: A Biblical Guide. The teaching of Jesus deepens the command in the Sermon on the Mount, where the Beatitudes frame the character of the kingdom; see The Beatitudes Explained: Matthew 5:1–12 Meaning. The same Law that gives the command also regulates justice and refuge, a concern that runs through Israel's renewal; see Deuteronomy 1: Moses Rehearses Israel's Journey and Failure. Together these passages show the command as part of a whole biblical vision of life, justice, and the fear of God.
Frequently asked questions
Does the sixth commandment forbid all killing?
No. The Hebrew word ratsach refers to unlawful, intentional killing, not to every taking of life. The Mosaic Law itself commands capital punishment for certain crimes, directs Israel in warfare, and provides for cities of refuge for accidental killers, as Numbers 35 and Deuteronomy 19 show. Romans 13:1-4 says the governing authority bears the sword as God's servant to restrain evil. The command forbids murder, not all use of force by lawful authority. Christians still debate particulars, but the text itself does not support a blanket prohibition of every killing.
How does Jesus change the sixth commandment?
Jesus does not change it; he reveals its depth. In Matthew 5:21-22 he says that everyone who is angry with his brother without cause is in danger of judgment, and he warns against contemptuous speech. He traces murder back to the heart, showing that the command was never satisfied by clean hands alone. This does not make anger identical to murder, but it does mean the command reaches our attitudes, our words, and our treatment of others. Jesus then calls his disciples to reconciliation and to settling matters quickly, so that the root does not grow into the act.
What does Genesis 9:6 say about the value of human life?
Genesis 9:6 says, "Whoever sheds man's blood, his blood will be shed by man, for God made man in his own image." The reason given is not social utility or personal worth but the divine image. Human life is valuable because God made human beings in his likeness. That is why murder is treated with such gravity throughout Scripture and why the sixth commandment sits alongside the other commands that protect God's honour. The image of God is the foundation for the protection of every human life, including the weak, the vulnerable, and the unwanted.
