The Sixth Commandment

        The sixth commandment says, "Thou shalt not kill" (Ex. 20:13).  This is the shortest of the ten commandments, and yet it's understanding is often misconstrued. The reason for the misunderstanding is a poor translation.  The Hebrew word translated as "kill" is not the Hebrew word for kill.  The Hebrew word for kill is hârag and means, "to smite with deadly intent" (Strong's Dictionary H2026).  This is the Hebrew word that means to kill for any reason.  That reason might be for food, for punishment, for self defense, for safety, and many others as well.  The Hebrew word for kill in the sixth commandment is râtsach which means, "to dash in pieces, that is, kill a human being, especially to murder" (Strong's Dictionary H7523).  This word specifically means murder.  In early English when the King James Bible was translated the word kill meant murder.  More modern translations, such as the ESV, use the word murder.  Here is the sixth commandment in the ESV.  “You shall not murder" Ex. 20:13 - ESV). 

Property Rights:

          The last five commandments establish all property rights.  Without property rights there is no point to having law and order.  Without property rights there is no law and order.  Here is the legal definition to property.  "Property is the highest right a man can have to anything: being used for that right which one has to lands or tenements, goods or chattels, which no way depends on another man's courtesy" (Black's Law Dictionary, First Edition, pg. 953).  Property is the "highest right a man can have to anything."  This right is basis of what law seeks to defend.  Property is "The right and interest which a man has in lands and chattels to the exclusion of others.  It is the right to enjoy and to dispose of certain things in the most absolute manner as he pleases, provided he makes no use of them prohibited by law" (John Bouvier, A Law Dictionary, 1856, "Property").  When someone has a property right in anything they can exclude others from that thing.  There is a distinction that must be made.  Property is a right, not a thing.  The thing is simply the subject of property.  "All things are not the subject of property, the sea, the air, and the like, cannot be appropriated" (John Bouvier, A Law Dictionary, 1856, "Property").  Property is a right, it is not a thing.  We look at this differently today.  We speak as if property is the thing we are speaking about.  Nothing in heaven or earth is ours.  "Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is YHVH thy Gods, the earth also, with all that therein is" (Deut. 10:14).  Everything belongs to YHVH.  We can only have a right to use what is YHVHs.

Life:

          You might ask, what do property rights have to do with murder?  The truth is they have everything to do with murder.  To demonstrate, I will cite the Declaration of Independence where it says, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."  All people have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  All people have the right to breath.  When someone takes away that right it is called murder.  These rights are "unalienable" and given by our Creator.  This means that God gave us these rights and no man can alienate us from these rights.  If someone murders another man, then they have alienated them from their right to life.  This is the purpose of the sixth commandment, to preserve life.  This means that all the statutes that preserve life such as diet, health, sanitation, and more fit under this commandment.  Here is a video to help further understand the sixth commandment.

 

Conclusion:

          The purpose of the sixth commandment is to preserve life.  God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature" (Gen. 2:7).  God gave man the right to breath.  God gave man the right to life.  It is against the sixth commandment to take the right to life away.  The sixth commandment preserves life.  As a result of this all the statutes regarding health fall under this commandment.  The titles of law that fit under the sixth commandment are:

 
  1. Agriculture (6)
  2. Animals (10)
  3. Bearing Children (8)
  4. Clean & Unclean (10)
  5. Diet & Health (7)
  6. Healing (10)
  1. Male Discharge (7)
  2. Manslaughter (6)
  3. Menstruation (8)
  4. Murder (8)
  5. Sanitation (14)
 

 

By Steve Siefken

 

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth

not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

2 Timothy 2:15 KJV