Lexicon

H7523 - ratsach

Strong's: H7523 · BLB lookup Pronunciation: raw-tsakh' Part of speech: verb Root: a primitive root OT occurrences: 47 tagged instances across 40 verses (Strong's-tagged KJV, measured)

Ratsach is the verb of the sixth commandment, "Thou shalt not kill" (Exodus 20:13; repeated at Deuteronomy 5:17). Almost every popular argument about that commandment, from "the Bible contradicts itself because it also says there is a time to kill" to pacifism, capital punishment and abortion, turns on what this one word covers. The honest answer is narrower than "kill" and slightly wider than "murder".

What the 40 verses show

The distribution is lopsided, and that is the first thing to notice. More than half of the verses sit in the homicide law of Numbers 35, the cities-of-refuge legislation in Deuteronomy 4 and 19, and the refuge lists of Joshua 20 and 21. The KJV's own renderings track that setting: "slayer" (16 tagged instances), "murderer" (13), "kill" (4), "murder" (3), "slain" (3), "manslayer" (2), and single instances of "killed", "killing", "slayeth", "murderers" and "put to death" (all counts measured on the KJV tagging).

Read across that range, ratsach covers:

1. Deliberate murder. The murderer who strikes with iron, stone or wood "shall surely be put to death" (Numbers 35:16-18); Naboth's judicial murder, "Hast thou killed, and also taken possession?" (1 Kings 21:19); the prophetic indictments (Hosea 4:2; Jeremiah 7:9; Isaiah 1:21; Psalm 94:6).
2. Accidental manslaughter. The one who "should kill his neighbour unawares, and hated him not in times past" (Deuteronomy 4:42); the slayer "that killeth any person unawares and unwittingly" (Joshua 20:3). The same verb names a killing the law itself treats as non-malicious and provides a refuge for.
3. The lawful killings of the homicide law. When the blood-avenger finds the manslayer outside his city of refuge and kills him, the verb is ratsach, and the text adds that the avenger "shall not be guilty of blood" (Numbers 35:27). The execution of a convicted murderer "by the mouth of witnesses" is also ratsach (Numbers 35:30; see Numbers 35:9-34).
4. Violent death at large, rarely. The sluggard's excuse, "There is a lion without, I shall be slain in the streets" (Proverbs 22:13).

What it never covers: killing in war. None of the 40 verses describes battle. Israel's warfare, the judicial executions of Leviticus, and Cain's murder of Abel are all told with other verbs, chiefly harag (H2026, 158 KJV verses, measured): Cain "slew him" (Genesis 4:8); Israel "had made an end of slaying all the inhabitants of Ai" (Joshua 8:24); "thou shalt kill the woman, and the beast" (Leviticus 20:16).

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Semantic range, stated precisely

Ratsach is the word for one person killing another inside the community, the killing that the homicide law exists to adjudicate. Whether the killer is a murderer, an accidental manslayer, or the avenger acting within the law is decided by the surrounding clauses, not by the verb. That is why the law can use the same verb for the crime, the accident and the lawful response to it.

Two consequences follow for the Decalogue:

• In the commandment, the act prohibited is unlawful homicide. A bare prohibition in a covenant code that elsewhere commands capital punishment (Exodus 21:12-14; Genesis 9:6) and regulates war cannot mean "never take a human life under any circumstances". In that setting "You shall not murder" is the better English, and most modern translations use it.
• But "ratsach means murder and nothing else" overstates the lexicon. Deuteronomy 4:42 and Numbers 35:27 and 35:30 are counter-examples a Hebrew-literate opponent can produce in a sentence. The defensible claim is the one above: the verb belongs to the vocabulary of homicide inside the covenant community, never to war, and the commandment forbids the unlawful form of it.

The "time to kill" contradiction charge

The objection runs: the sixth commandment says "Thou shalt not kill", Ecclesiastes 3:3 says there is "a time to kill", so the Bible contradicts itself.

• Different verbs. Ecclesiastes 3:3 uses harag (H2026), not ratsach (measured). The objection works only in an English translation that renders both as "kill".
• Different speech acts. Exodus 20:13 is covenant law, a prohibition addressed by God to Israel. Ecclesiastes 3 is a poem of observation about the seasons of human life, "a time to be born, and a time to die". It commands nothing.
• Different categories. A contradiction needs the same proposition affirmed and denied in the same respect (see Law of Non-Contradiction). "Unlawful homicide is forbidden" and "there are occasions on which human beings die by violence, some of them lawful" are not the same proposition.

The same pattern carries into the New Testament. Jesus quotes the commandment with the Greek phoneuō (G5407), which the KJV renders "Thou shalt not kill" at Matthew 5:21 and "Thou shalt do no murder" at Matthew 19:18: one Greek verb, two English renderings in the same translation (measured). The English variation is a translation choice, not a textual contradiction.

Theological force

• Human life is protected because of the image. The earliest statement of the homicide principle grounds it in creation: "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man" (Genesis 9:6, KJV). The prohibition and the penalty share one rationale.
• The heart behind the act. Jesus takes the commandment inward: anger and contempt stand under the same judgment (Matthew 5:21-22; see Sermon on the Mount). The verb names the act; the Sermon names its root.
• Love fulfils it. Paul lists "Thou shalt not kill" among the commandments summed up in "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" (Romans 13:9, KJV).

Where the word decides a debate

• Pacifism. "The commandment forbids all killing" cannot be carried by ratsach; the case for Christian nonviolence has to be made from the teaching of Jesus and the apostles, not from the Hebrew verb.
• Capital punishment. The verb is used of a lawful execution in Numbers 35:30, so the commandment cannot be read as abolishing the penalty the same law prescribes.
• Abortion. The pro-life argument does not need ratsach to mean "all killing". It needs the unborn to be a human being, after which the ordinary sense of unlawful homicide applies; see Pro-Life Premise-Based Argument.
• Bible contradictions. See Bible Contradictions Objection Defeater for the general method; this entry supplies the word-level answer to the Exodus 20 and Ecclesiastes 3 pairing.

Notable verses

• Exodus 20:13, the commandment; Deuteronomy 5:17, its repetition
• Numbers 35:9-34, the homicide law, the densest cluster (murderer, manslayer, avenger, execution)
• Deuteronomy 4:42 and 19:3-6, the unintentional slayer and the cities of refuge
• Joshua 20:3, "unawares and unwittingly"
• Deuteronomy 22:26, the assault law compared to a man who "slayeth" his neighbour
• 1 Kings 21:19, Naboth
• Hosea 4:2 and Jeremiah 7:9, the Decalogue in the prophets' indictments
• Proverbs 22:13, the one non-human killer (a lion)

See also

• Bible Contradictions Objection Defeater, the general engagement
• Sermon on the Mount, the antitheses and the inward reading of the commandment
• Pro-Life Premise-Based Argument, the abortion argument that does not rest on the verb
• Mosaic Capital Punishment, the penalties the same law prescribes
• OT Atrocities Descriptive vs Prescriptive Objection Defeater, the law prohibiting what the narratives report
• Law of Non-Contradiction, what a real contradiction requires
• KJV, the translation behind "Thou shalt not kill"

Notes

Lexical workspace for ratsach.