"Thou shalt not kill": some legal and linguistic problems

Large plaques of the religious precepts generally known as the Ten Commandments were recently placed in official public spaces in several states. This practice has been successfully challenged in federal courts of appeals, and the challenge was upheld by the Supreme Court in April 2003. Yet there is another problem with such plaques, if older translations are used. "Thou shalt not kill" is actually a mistranslation of the Hebrew, "You shall not murder. The two statements are not synonymous, yet many people in the world still use archaic biblical translations, with unfortunate bioethical consequences. There is also widespread usage of a non-commandment, "Thou shalt not kill; but needst not strive officiously to keep alive." This is not a biblical injunction; it is a line from A.H. Clough's satirical poem, "The Latest Decalogue."