What cases must be reckoned as murder, or as breaches of this commandment?
Besides direct murder, by whatever means, the same sin may be committed in many indirect ways, by commission and by omission, by the hand, the tongue, the pen, and the settled purposes of the heart; for the Lord traces murder to its spring: “out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders” (Mat 15:19; see Q467, Q486), and the first blood was shed by envy before it was shed by the hand (Gen 4:5–8; 1Jo 3:12; see Q581, Q110). The commandment binds them all; the following cases, and others like them, must be reckoned as breaches of it:
When a judge condemns a prisoner whom he knows to be innocent, for the Law commands: “keep far from a false charge, and do not slay the innocent and righteous, for I will not acquit the wicked” (Exo 23:7; see Q583); and woe is pronounced on those “who acquit the guilty for a bribe and deprive the innocent of his right” (Isa 5:23). Pilate’s basin did not cleanse Pilate’s hands (Mat 27:24). With the unjust judge stands the false witness whose tongue arms the sentence, as the two sons of Belial slew Naboth (1Kg 21:8–13; see Q598), and as false witnesses stood against the Lord himself (Mat 26:59–60; see Q598).
When anyone conceals or sets free a murderer, giving him opportunity for fresh crime, for the accessory shares in the deed: “do not participate in another man’s sins” (1Ti 5:22); the blood that is shed afterward cries out also against the hand that opened the way (cf. Gen 4:10; see Q579).
When anyone could save his neighbor from death, but does not, as when a rich man suffers a poor man to die of hunger. The Scriptures cut off the excuse of ignorance: “Rescue those who are being taken away to death… If you say, ‘Behold, we did not know this,’ does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?” (Prv 24:11–12); and the Apostle asks how God’s love can abide in the man who “has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need yet closes his heart against him” (1Jo 3:17). So, the rich man was condemned, not for striking Lazarus, but for stepping over him (Luk 16:19–31; see Q227, Q441).
When anyone, by excessive burdens and cruel punishments, wears out those under him and hastens their death, “behold, the wages of the laborers… which you kept back by fraud, cry out” (Jas 5:4; see Q568, Q592); and the son of Sirach says it without softening: “to take away a neighbor’s living is to murder him; to deprive an employee of his wages is to shed blood” (Sir 34:21–22).
When anyone drives his neighbor toward despair or death by cruelty, slander, or contempt, for “death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Prv 18:21), and whoever says “You fool!” is liable, by the Lord’s word, to the judgment of murder (Mat 5:21–22; see Q437, Q490).
When anyone, through intemperance or other vices (see S077), shortens his own life, a slow self-destruction which forgets that the body is not our own: “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you… you are not your own! You were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1Co 6:19–20; see Q266, Q360).
