By the way:
Exodus 20:13: You shall not murder.
From Alter:Readers thoroughly conditioned by the King James Version's "Thou shalt not kill" need to be reminded that the Hebrew verb ratzach (רָצַח) clearly means "murder," not "kill," and so the ban is specifically on criminal acts of taking life.
Sarna [JPS]The King James Version and other older translations had "kill." However, the usual words for killing are not used here, rather it is ratzach, which generally refes to unauthorized homocide, perhaps one that called forth blood vengeance, רָצַח came to be associated with killing out of hatred and malice.
PlautAs indicated above, only unauthorized homicide is meant by the text, and the older translation "You shall not kill" was too general and did not represent the more specific meaning of לא תרצח. Hence the claims of pacifists who would see this command as a prohibition of all killing including that legitimized by the state during warfare, cannot be sustained. The same is true for the abolition of capital punishment. Laudable as these objectives are, they find no warranty in the text itself, which has been used to legitimize other prohibitions as well.
Those who insist on rendering the term as 'kill' are simply serving an agenda and doing an injustice to the topic at hand.
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