Well, here’s a straightforward command, right? And yet Yahweh is going to tell His people to murder all of the inhabitants of the Promised Land that they are heading towards. So what’s with the doubletalk? Well, the bottom line is this: you’re not the Creator of life, therefore you have no right to be trying to squelch it. Now Yahweh will say elsewhere in the Old Testament that He is the One who holds life and death in His hands. In other words, no one dies before God wants them to. Yahweh will also address the issue of accidental killings—like when your ox gets out and mows down the neighbor’s kid. He’ll also say that sometimes it’s okay to murder—like when someone sneaks into your house in the dead of night and you’re acting to defend yourself. When we don’t read the entire body of Yahweh’s commands, we come away with a false impression of what He actually said.

There are times when God authorizes Christians to kill, and in such cases, He does not accuse them of rebellion. When the Christian doctor has to choose between saving a mother or saving her baby, he needs to ask God to have His way in the situation and then go with whatever leading God gives him. When a Christian soldier gets called to a battlefield, he needs to make sure he has God’s Authorization before he starts blasting bullets at people. Just because we don’t have the power to end lives prematurely doesn’t get us off the hook for submitting to God’s Authority. This command calls us to respect life as God’s property, not ours, therefore we need to be seeking His input on what to do. How far should a Christian fireman go to try and save a child from a burning building? When is it okay to pull life support? When is it okay for a cop to shoot his assailant? These are questions that each individual soul needs to take to God as they come up. For many situations, there is no blanket rule we can lay down because God is a wild card and He has a long history of unexpected moves (see Does God kill? What is the difference between killing and murdering?).