"You shall not murder."
The Law of God is pretty straightforward. These are the things you must do, these are the things you must not do. Throughout the rest of Exodus, followed by Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, God and Moses expound on the meaning behind the commandments. Over the course of the next 1500 years, the priests and Levites, prophets and teachers, later the Scribes, doctors, lawyers, Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and pretty much everybody else familiar with the Mosaic code would continue expounding on it. And when Jesus came, He Himself had much to say about the Law. And still, at its base and most simple understanding, the Law of God is pretty straightforward.
The Law of God is pretty straightforward. These are the things you must do, these are the things you must not do. Throughout the rest of Exodus, followed by Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, God and Moses expound on the meaning behind the commandments. Over the course of the next 1500 years, the priests and Levites, prophets and teachers, later the Scribes, doctors, lawyers, Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and pretty much everybody else familiar with the Mosaic code would continue expounding on it. And when Jesus came, He Himself had much to say about the Law. And still, at its base and most simple understanding, the Law of God is pretty straightforward.
In considering this particular of the commandments, it should also be noted that not only does God set down in stone the Ten Commandments to govern the individuals and the community of His people, He also gives the penalty for transgressing the law if one is caught (and I'd like to stress that point--if one is caught; people didn't go turning themselves in). In the pre-Christ era of God's dealings with Israel, if two or more someones saw another someone committing a transgression of the Law, they were to be brought before the elders, accused, proven guilty, and then immediately taken outside the camp or city and stoned to death. In some cases, their bodies were to be burned and the ashes scattered. Death was the penalty of sin.
The sixth commandment is one that protects the sanctity of human life: life created in the image and likeness of God, life given by the breath and sustained by the will of God, and life that is governed by the laws of God.
You shall not murder. This is the prohibition of taking a life unjustly, either as an act of premeditation or of passion.
If you willfully kill another human being, your own life is forfeit.
Killing in battle was apparently not considered murder, though killing in self-defense was.
Causing the death of the unborn child, one still in its mother's womb, was named specifically as murder and deserving of death.
And to top it all off, Jesus explained this commandment by saying that if we are angry with someone unjustly, and thereby wish their harm, we are guilty in our hearts of murder.
Life belongs to God, and we should be careful not to unjustly take it into our own hands.
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