“He who spares the guilty harms the innocent.”
— Seneca, On Anger (Book I, 20)
Few biblical phrases have been so widely displayed, repeated, and misunderstood as the Bible’s Sixth Commandment. Across centuries, “Thou shalt not kill” has been engraved in church walls, echoed in sermons, and even today carried on protest signs. Modern demonstrators invoke it to oppose war, capital punishment, or even the right of self-defense. The words are meant to silence debate, as though the commandment itself forbids all forms of killing.
But as Seneca reminds us, sparing the guilty inevitably harms the innocent. Justice cannot survive if it treats murderers and victims alike. And that is exactly what happens when the commandment is misread. In the original Hebrew, the text does not forbid all killing. It forbids murder. Exodus 20:13 reads lo tirtzach (לא תרצח), a command against ratsach, the unlawful shedding of blood. Other Hebrew words, such as harag, are used for general killing. The distinction is fundamental: the law condemns unjust killing, while leaving space—indeed, demanding—for killing that is just.
The mistranslation of this verse as “Thou shalt not kill” has obscured the biblical meaning and shaped Christian practice in ways that undermine the concept of Justice itself. By erasing the category of justified killing—whether in self-defense, in war, or in capital punishment—the mistranslation leaves communities and individuals vulnerable to predation and violence. Justice, one of the Stoic cardinal virtues, is impossible without the courage to punish the guilty and defend the innocent.
Justice as a Stoic Virtue
For the Stoics, Justice was not an abstract slogan but a living responsibility. Along with Wisdom, Courage, and Temperance, it was one of the four cardinal virtues, forming the foundation of the good life and of any stable society.
Marcus Aurelius, reflecting in Meditations, wrote that “What is not good for the beehive cannot be good for the bee.” He meant that individual virtue cannot exist apart from service to the community. Justice was social, not solitary. It required protecting others as much as refraining from personal wrongdoing.
Seneca taught that justice restrained cruelty and ensured fairness, warning that neglecting punishment of the guilty harmed the innocent. Epictetus argued that a person’s duties flowed from their roles—citizen, father, soldier—and could not be abandoned without betraying Justice.
Justice, then, was an active duty. It demanded that one not only avoid committing harm but also resist those who sought to inflict it. To stand aside while the innocent were destroyed was not virtue but cowardice. Properly understood, “Thou shall not murder” aligns perfectly with this Stoic vision: condemning unjust killing while obligating punishment for the murderer.
Murder, Killing, and the Pursuit of Justice
The Hebrew text insists on a distinction between murder and killing. Murder (ratsach) is always unjust. Killing (harag) can be just or unjust depending on context. Without this moral distinction, justice collapses into contradiction.
The biblical law recognizes three legitimate forms of killing:
Self-Defense. Exodus 22:2 declares that if a thief is struck and killed while breaking in at night, the defender is not guilty of bloodshed. The right to life carries with it the right to defend it. Justice requires that the victim not be punished for protecting his own life or that of others.
Societal Defense (War). God commanded ancient Israel to defend itself against hostile nations. War is tragic, but when survival is at stake, killing becomes the necessary act of communal self-preservation. To refuse to defend the weak would be to hand them over to slaughter.
Capital Punishment. Exodus 21:12 states, “Whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death.” This was not seen as murder but as justice—the community’s acknowledgment that life is sacred, and that to take it unlawfully requires the ultimate penalty.
These categories demonstrate that killing is not synonymous with murder. To kill without justice is murder. To kill in the service of justice is protection. The Stoics, like the Hebrews, recognized this: Marcus Aurelius accepted war as part of the emperor’s burden, and Seneca affirmed that punishment—even execution—was sometimes necessary to restrain cruelty against others.
The Error of Pacifism
The mistranslation “kill” instead of “murder” has fueled centuries of Christian pacifism. Some early Christians, rejecting Roman militarism, leaned toward abstaining from violence altogether. Later, entire sects—the Quakers, Mennonites, and Brethren—enshrined pacifism as central to their identity, insisting that all killing was sin.
The Sermon on the Mount reinforced this belief. Jesus’s command, “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other also” (Matthew 5:39), was meant to break the cycle of personal vengeance and humiliation duels common in his time. Yet many Christians misunderstood this as a prohibition against all resistance, even to violent attack.
Such readings collapse personal humility into public irresponsibility. They confuse Jesus’s call to reject retaliation with an imagined command to accept slaughter. For the Stoics, this would be unthinkable. Justice demands that the innocent be protected, even when force is required.
The consequences of pacifist misinterpretation are not merely theoretical. They are written in blood. When Christian communities embrace absolute nonviolence, they leave themselves defenseless before predators. Evil thrives where resistance to it is forbidden. Gun-free zones are the perfect example of this idiocy and the prime reason that they are chosen by those who seek to commit terrorist acts. I have yet to hear of any such attempts at police stations or gun shows.
Nowhere is this clearer than in modern Africa. Across Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Sahel, Christians suffer relentless violence from Islamist militant groups such as Boko Haram, ISWAP, and the Allied Democratic Forces. Entire villages are burned, churches destroyed, worshippers massacred.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom reports that Nigeria alone accounts for the majority of Christians killed worldwide each year. Open Doors International documents thousands of deaths annually, with millions more displaced across Sub-Saharan Africa. Idealistic slogans do not prevent these atrocities. Communities that can’t or won’t defend themselves are slaughtered.
Pacifism may soothe the conscience of those far from danger, but for the vulnerable, it is a death sentence. To refuse to resist evil with force when necessary is not holiness—it is betrayal of the very concept of justice.
Justice Requires Courage
The mistranslation of “Thou shalt not kill” has shaped centuries of Christian thought, encouraging pacifism and clouding moral reasoning. Today, it still appears in public discourse as a ready-made slogan against war, punishment, or even self-defense. Yet the original commandment, “Thou shall not murder,” insists on a sharper truth: murder is always forbidden, but not all killing is murder.
Justice requires the courage to make this distinction. Killing in self-defense, in the defense of your country, or in the lawful punishment of the guilty is not sin but duty. As Seneca warned, “He who spares the guilty harms the innocent.” Justice cannot be built on mistranslation or on pacifist illusions. It can only be built on truth—and on the courage to act when justice demands it.