By Dr. Anne Davis

Are you concerned about the common belief that suicide is an unforgivable sin? Are you curious to know when and where this interpretation came about?

Augustine in the fifth century first condemned suicide based on the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.” His proposal was in response to the common belief at the time that martyrdom was a gift to God.

The actual doctrine of suicide as an unforgivable sin did not originate until Thomas Aquinas in the eleventh century. Aquinas, also relying on the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill”, concluded that suicide deprived a person of the opportunity for repentance and, therefore, forgiveness. This doctrine was accepted by the Catholic Church and has permeated many Protestant denominations.

Recently many theologians have questioned this understanding of suicide as an unforgivable sin, which will lead us to Scripture to search for an an answer there.

We will start with the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill”, and immediately we have a problem of translation. As we look at the four most common Bible versions, one Catholic (Douay-Rheims) and three Protestant (King James, New International, New American Standard), we find that two of them translate “kill” and two translate “murder”. In English, these words have different nuances of meaning. “Murder” is to kill intentionally with evil intent. “Killing” simply means the death of a human being, which may be intentional or unintentional. All murder is killing, but not all killing is murder.

So, what do we do next? We learn that the Hebrew Word in God’s commandment that has been translated “kill” and “murder” is רָצַח (ratsach), but what does that mean? We can read in English what others have explained, but I encourage you to conduct your own word study on the original Hebrew word, which you can do online by going to Biblehub.com and looking at the interlinear translation of Exodus 20:13. Above the Hebrew word ratsach in the interlinear translation you will find a number, and when you click on this number it will take you to Biblehub’s concordance page that lists every verse where ratsach appears in the Hebrew Scriptures. In this case I have done the word study for you.

I examined the 28 verses (in their context) that appear in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible also called the Pentateuch, and I discovered that these verses containing ratsach distinguish between intentional and unintentional killing of another person. So, when God commanded לא תִּרְעָח which is includes a Hebrew verb that has been translated “do not kill” and “do not murder”, we must consider the situation to determine whether the act of killing is intentional with a passion of hate, or unintentional with no passion of hate. If intentional, the penalty is death upon the evidence of more than one witness. If unintentional, the accused could flee to one of ancient Israel’s six cities of refuge where the person would be safe from the one seeking revenge. We are told that “by fleeing to one of these cities he might live.”

But now we must ask, “What does an intentional or unintentional killing have to do with suicide? I suggest there is no passion of hate in a suicide, which is a tragic reaction to stressful life situations. Therefore, the penalty for suicide is not death, meaning permanent separation from God. Of course, we can conclude that suicide is intentional but without the passion of hate death (that is, separation from God) is not a penalty. Therefore, the commandment לא תִּרְעָח in Exodus 22:13 does not seem to apply to suicide.

That presents a dilemma. What does the Bible say about the consequences of suicide? I think the answer is in the nature of a loving and compassionate God, which we can perceive as I draw your attention to another Hebrew word that is a synonym, yet with a slightly different nuance of meaning. הָרַג (harag) is the Hebrew synonym that means “to kill”, often in connection with battle, but always implying ruthless violence. There are two accounts in Scripture where someone kills another; in English we would call it murder. Nevertheless, God offers forgiveness to the offending murderer.

We will turn now to the story of Cain and Abel. An article by John Byron in Biblical Archaeology Review (May-June 2014) asks, “Did Cain get away with Murder?” It seems logical that Cain’s murder of his brother Abel would require the death penalty, but instead God cursed Cain so he was no longer able to farm the land. He became a “fugitive and wanderer”. Furthermore, it is startling to learn that God placed a mark on Cain, which prevented others from killing him. That is, God did not allow Cain to receive the death penalty for his murder.

There is another aspect of the story about Cain that most people have missed, and it offers us an important lesson for our lives today. God offered Cain a path to forgiveness. Did Cain take this offer of grace? The Scriptures are silent, but the message is clear.

Because God did not accept Cain’s sacrifice, we learn that “Cain became angry and his face fell.” This would have stimulated in the minds of the ancient Israelites a vivid picture of Cain’s dejected expression.

How did God respond? He gave Cain instruction on how he could overcome his guilt of murder and be forgiven by God. I will give you the translation from the New American Standard Version first, and then I will explain the Hebrew that leads to an entirely different meaning.

If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? Genesis 4:7

Your countenance, meaning Cain’s face, is in italics, which means the editors have added it to the original Hebrew. So, we must delete it. “If you do well, will you not be lifted up?” The Hebrew word translated “lifted up” is שְׂאֵח (sae-et), which means lifted up as in being exalted. I suggest this is the correct translation: “If you do well, will you not be exalted [in the eyes of God]?” “Do well” in Hebrew simply means to do good things that are in alignment and harmony with God. God has given Cain an opportunity to remove his separation from God that has been caused by the sin of murder.

There is another heartbreaking story that involves murder, and this time we can see God lifting the guilt from the burden of the murderer’s sin.

David not only had an adulteress relationship with Bathsheba, but he also caused the death of Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, which the Bible views as murder. David gave instructions to the leader of his army. “Place Uriah in the front line of the fiercest battle and withdraw from him, so that he may be struck down and die” (2 Samuel 11:15).

We learn that God caused David to experience the consequence of his illicit affair with Bathsheba because their newborn baby died. However, God lifted the penalty of death when David repented of this grievous sin. We hear David speak these simple words, “I have sinned against the Lord” (2 Samuel 12:13), but  can you empathize with David’s agony that he must have felt when he confessed those words to God?

I find this story of David and his two sins of adultery and murder quite uplifting. Yes, we must experience consequences for any sinful activity in our lives, but that is God’s loving way of teaching us to turn away from the ways of the world and turn to Him. Then, we see that God withheld the penalty of death for the grievous sin of David’s murder, which occurred after David repented. I suggest this account is prophetic of God’s promise of eternal life, despite the penalty of death for sin, when we first believe in His son Jesus (Yeshua).

So, what can we conclude about the penalty, if any, for committing suicide? Because there is no passion of hate, the Bible does not require a penalty of death, which is separation from God. The Catholic position is that suicide prevents the act of repentance and thus there can be no forgiveness. But I find in Scripture that God is a loving and compassionate God who offers a way to return to Him despite the grievous sin of murder, as he did with Cain, and He forgives all those who repent even for the sin of murder, as He did with David.

With that, I wish you shalom.

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