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The Contradiction Desk
Claimed Bible contradictions, stated the way they circulate, each with one diagnosis and the evidence for it: the Hebrew, the Greek, the manuscripts.
Thou shalt not kill, and slay every man his brother
The commandment in the King James forbids killing. Twelve chapters later Moses tells the Levites to kill. The Hebrew verb in the commandment is narrower than English kill.
Exodus 20:13, in every translation this tool compares.
The real question: can a law forbid killing and command it in the same book? The sign at the range says no shooting, and the range officer tells you to fire. Is the sign about the same act the officer means?
Exodus 20:13 in the King James reads Thou shalt not kill. At Exodus 32:27 Moses, speaking for the Lord, tells the Levites to go through the camp and slay brother, companion and neighbour. The same law prescribes death for a long list of offences, and God himself kills in the flood and at the Passover.
The verb in the commandment is ratsach. Strong's, as carried in the site's word study data, defines it as to kill a human being, especially to murder, and counts 47 uses. The CSB Study Bible says it is not a general word for killing and is not used for killing animals or for killing in war or by legal execution. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible says it takes a person as both subject and object and refers to homicide. Bible Hub's parallel page shows where the versions fall: the King James, the American Standard Version, Douay-Rheims and Brenton's Septuagint read kill; the NIV, ESV, NASB, CSB, NLT and the JPS Tanakh of 1917 read murder. The English kill is wider than the Hebrew.
Thou shalt not kill.
The Skeptic's Annotated Bible, under "To kill or not to kill.", lists Exodus 20:13 and Deuteronomy 5:17 against the laws that execute witches, blasphemers, Sabbath breakers and disobedient children, against the flood and the death of Egypt's firstborn, against Exodus 32:27, and against the order to destroy Amalek in 1 Samuel 15:2-3. After the verses that say murder it adds: "Well, don't murder anyone, anyway." At full strength the case is moral, not lexical: even with murder in the commandment, the same law commands killings a modern reader would call murder.
The CSB Study Bible points to the cities of refuge, set up so that a homicide could be investigated to see whether it was accidental or premeditated (Exodus 21:12-14; Numbers 35; Deuteronomy 19; Joshua 20). The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible says biblical and other ancient law codes distinguish lawful killing, such as self-defence (Exodus 22:2), from unlawful. MacArthur stresses that the law imposed death on every manslayer who killed intentionally, which places the commandment inside a legal system rather than against all taking of life.
Narrowing kill to murder removes the verbal contradiction. It does not touch the question the skeptic is actually pressing, whether killings the law itself commands, Exodus 32 and 1 Samuel 15 among them, are just. And murder is an approximation too. The ESV footnote says the Hebrew word also covers causing human death through carelessness or negligence, and MacArthur reads it as taking life under a legal code whether the killer meant to or not.
Not a defense of every killing in the Old Testament. The entry diagnoses one verb. The ethics of the conquest and of capital law are separate questions.
- CSB Study Bible, note on Exodus 20:13
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Exodus 20:13
- ESV Study Bible, footnote on Exodus 20:13
- The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on Exodus 20:13
- Bible Word Study (jayms.com tool data), Strong's H7523
- Bible Hub, Exodus 20:13 parallel versions, https://biblehub.com/exodus/20-13.htm
- The Skeptic's Annotated Bible, To kill or not to kill., https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/kill.html
- King James Version, Exodus 20:13 and 32:27
