Thou Shalt Not Murder? Thou Shalt Not Kill?

In the July issue of The Catholic Sun (our diocesan newspaper), a reader's letter tried to argue against the death penalty with "Thou shalt not kill." The August issue had a reader's rebuttal, saying that the commandment actually should read "Thou shalt not murder." Below, is the letter I sent in reply.

Tom Takash’s August letter contained a faulty assertion about the 5th commandment which I would like to correct. He wrote, “‘Thou shalt not kill,’ has been shown time and again that the command in question refers not to killing but to murder.” This is translational tunnel-vision. While it is true that many Bible translations use the word “murder”, there are also many that use the word “kill.” In fact, the only thing that has been shown time and again is that the word used in Exodus 20:13 can mean both “kill” and “murder.” The footnote on our brand new NABRE translation says just that, and ends with, “In the present context, it denotes the killing of one Israelite by another, motivated by hatred or the like.” Is this murder? Is this killing? Or is this scrupulosity? This commandment has always been understood to mean respect for the image of God (including our Catechism, see CCC Part 3, section 2, Article 5). Jesus himself told us that we respect the image of God when we do not harbor anger towards our brother (Matthew 5:21), and Paul reaffirms that “love is the fulfillment of the law.” (Romans 13:10)

Murder is defined as the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. This matches neither the text nor footnote exactly, though it would be best to keep in mind that not all legal killing is allowed by the commandment anyway (abortion, euthanasia, unjust war…not to mention genocide in Africa, negligent disregard for human life in Chinese factories, stoning women to death in the Middle East for talking to a man who is not her husband, etc.). Granted, the commandment does not proscribe capital punishment, but it certainly isn’t a blank check for it, either.