"Thou shall not kill" – do you believe that means you shall not kill people or all living creatures?

Answer 1

No living creatures. I feel guilty every time I breathe because I've just killed millions upon millions of tiny helpless bacteria.

Answer 2

Shall not kill people. God gave to man power and authority to dominate all the other creatures of the world and for the sake of his sustenance i.e Food and any other purpose for the killing as you can also kill for defense - snakes. However you shall not kill with no good reason just because we are given dominion to dominate all the other creation.We are also to take care of God's creation. You can't go killing innocent animals without any need to do so and claim that you have power and dominion on any creature other than Man. We were given enough power and wisdom to know what we should do freely in our dominance of everything that was created. It might not be written any where in the bible but somethings were not necessarily to be as some had to come automatically through the conscience that God gave unto each one of human kind

Answer 3

Primarily it means "do not kill people" and does not mean "all living creatures". I understand that the more accurate rendering from the original Hebrew is "do not commit murder".

Even in the Old Testament it obviously does not mean "all living creatures" because God has specifically allowed certain animals to be eaten as food, as in Leviticus 11:2 - "of all the animals that live on land, these are the ones you may eat", and the animals that may be eat are then enumerated.

In the New Testament, there's the incident recorded in chapter 11 of the book of Acts where Peter was commanded in a vision to "kill and eat" animals that were in a sheet that "came down from heaven" - "four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles and birds of the air". When Peter expressed refusal to eat them, declaring that they are impure or unclean, a voice from heaven said, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean." While this is understood to mean that Peter should henceforth not shrink from associating with Gentiles or non-Jews for the sake of the Gospel, it also agrees with the passage in Mark 7:18-20 which says that "Jesus declared all food 'clean'". All food obviously includes animals. Therefore, the biblical command "thou shall not kill" is to be mainly understood as referring to people, especially that of killing people with malice intent.

Of course, now that the problem of the extinction of whole animal or plant species has become a serious ecological concern, the command "thou shall not kill" may also be understood to mean "all living creatures", if those living creatures belong to the category of "endangered species". Now that mankind's knowledge of ecology has advanced so far that it is now possible to tell with some scientific and reasonable accuracy that certain species are in danger of extinction due to human predatory activities, then in those particular instances, it may be said that the command "thou shall not kill" extends to those endangered living creatures as well.

God is the Creator of all living creatures. In the creation account in the book of Genesis, it says that after creating all the living creatures "according to their kind", God saw that it was good. Since the existence of those living creatures is declared by God as "good", their extinction is therefore "bad" and undesirable. It is only logical to conclude that God does not want those creatures to be annihilated and become extinct. In short, if and when the threat of species extinction is imminent, we can say that the command "thou shall not kill" applies to the threatened animal or plant species as well.

Answer 4

Hi, thanks for asking.

The verses in question are found in Deuteronomy 5:17 and Exodus 20:13. "Thou shalt not kill" is found specifically in the King James Version of the Bible.

In the King James Version (KJV), certain words do not mean exactly what we might take them to mean today, because we live in a different time than when the KJV was translated (1611, I think).

So, to clarify these things, it is good to look at a variety of translations. The English Standard Version (ESV) is useful for this purpose. The ESV is very similar to the KJV in that it is a word-for-word translation, but it uses less archaic forms of words, because it was translated very recently.

You will see that the ESV renders the verses "You shall not murder", with a footnote indicating that "the Hebrew word also covers causing human death through carelessness or negligence", but no mention of creatures other than humans.

See for yourself with the links below. You can also use that site to look at a variety of translations, in many languages.

May God bless you.

Answer 5

It means you shall not kill people.

"The next day, while they were on their way and nearing the city, Peter went up to the roof terrace to pray at about noontime. He was hungry and wished to eat, and while they were making preparations he fell into a trance. He saw heaven opened and something resembling a large sheet coming down, lowered to the ground by its four corners. In it were all the earth's four-legged animals and reptiles and the birds of the sky. A voice said to him, "Get up, Peter. Slaughter and eat." But Peter said, "Certainly not, sir. For never have I eaten anything profane and unclean." The voice spoke to him again, a second time, "What God has made clean, you are not to call profane." - Acts 10:9-15

Answer 6

The commandment is thou shall not kill. Not, thou shall not kill people, or, thou shall not kill people or animals unless it is for survival, or thou shall not kill unless it is chicken or fish. I think the meaning is pretty clear...we are not supposed to be killing anything.

Answer 7

My feelings on this is the original intent of this commandant is mis-interpreted. The intent as was explained to me was the commandant should read "Thou shall not murder" If someone broke into your house and threatened harm to you or your loved ones, you have the right to defend yourself. But just to take a life without any reason would be murder and that would be wrong.

Answer 8

Thou shall not kill means you should kill with god's blessing.

------

Isaiah, if it speaks murder, what did Moses do AFTER he got the commandment? Therefore it speaks "Thou shall not kill unless I say so"

Answer 9

No because if you look at the sacrifices and food that was ate in those times. I still think we can agree than and now that we wouldn't kill for no reason. Fear of things like snakes and spiders are another debate however.

Answer 10

the phrase refers to killing people. it does not exclude slaughtering animal for food. most religions including christianity are opposed to mindless killings which does not mean vegetarianism. Jainism-an india base religion derived from hinduism appears to be an exception as the faith preaches total non violence and vegetarianism and even avoids killing of germs by covering mouth with cloth.

Answer 11

I believe it refers to people, in biblical days they did eat meat from animals that they had to kill, I think somewhere in the bible it says not to kill animals for sport and be wasteful.