Thou Shall Not Kill

The 6th of the 10 commandments (Exodus 20:13) in the Bible says that you shall not kill. There are many instances of killing in the Bible but a few seem to intrigue me more than the others. I suppose it’s because of my personal interest in forensics. Today, there are many cases, even “cold cases”, that are now being solved because of the advanced technology in so many fields of forensic science. I am also tickled when I consider t hat God does not need forensics. He knows everything and it is He that gives man the knowledge to invent the technology. It is a blessing in many ways as even those who do not recognize God as God benefit.

That was not the way it was in the Bible. Think about Joseph’s brothers who brought their father Jacob the blood stained coat of many colors. Jacob presumed, and the brothers allowed him to do so, that it was Joseph’s blood (Genesis 37:31-33). Today’s forensics would have been able to immediately determine that the blood on the coat was not human blood. Another interesting forensic killing that took place in the Bible occurs in the book of Judges. The incident is specifically recorded in Judges 3:15-23. This one involved a man who was fat and the fat covered the knife that was used to kill him so much so that the killer could not pull it out of him.

I don’t mean to be gory, but there is one more that I will mention and that is when a man killed a sick man by simply putting a wet cloth over his face (2 Kings 8:7-15). One would have thought that he died naturally. This was a “neat” means of suffocation that would have the forensic team determining whether it really was a sick man who died naturally or whether it was actually suffocation.

Thou shall not kill is the main point but getting to the root of why the killing took place in the first place, who did it [the butler ?] and was the killing ever resolved are all what makes for a very interesting read. I’m often distracted from my daily inspirational reading but in a very good way. The Bible is more than a book of stories. It is a book of stories that intrigue the mind, cause you to research further and definitely compare and relate to current events. There are a lot of people who would rather die than read a good book. Who killed the desire to read and live and explore the adventures of people who lived centuries before us and gave us so many great examples? Thou shall not kill.