The sixth commandment might even be the most popular of all the commandments. When it comes to the Hebrew word translated “murder” in verse 13 there’s actually not an exact correlation in English. In fact, in the old King James Version, the Hebrew word is translated “kill” — “Thou shalt not kill” — that’s how I first learned this commandment, but for us in English, we usually think differently about the words “kill” and “murder.” And I’m going to try to explain how we do this: Kill is a broader category, and murder is a narrower one. We use “kill” and “murder” to mean different thing — “kill” is broad, “murder” is narrow — and when it comes to the Hebrew word in verse 13, it’s sort of in between those. The Hebrew word means something narrower than our word “kill” but broader than our word “murder.” For a definition, basically, the Hebrew word for “murder” refers to the ending of life that is unlawful or forbidden, whether it is intentional or accidental.
