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murder
רציחה · הריגה · קטילה · מיתה
Bottom line
Retzichah is murder: killing with no legal warrant, and the word itself passes the verdict. Harigah is killing plain, lawful or not, direct or brought about at a distance, and it covers animals and plants as well as people. Ketilah is the Aramaic word the Targumim use for both, so render it "kill"; in the few Hebrew pesukim it is disputed. Not to get wrong: lo tirtzach is "do not murder," never "do not kill," and the choice of root is why shechitah and judicial execution are not in the prohibition.
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| רציחה | retzichah | murder | unlawful by definition (Rashbam); humans only (Bedersi); by one's own hand |
| הריגה | harigah | killing, slaying | value-free (Rashbam, Pappenheim); includes indirect killing and animals (Bedersi) |
| קטילה | ketilah | killing (Aramaic) | the Targum's rendering of both; "cutting" in many sugyos; Hebrew usage disputed |
Where the authorities disagree
Whether retzichah and harigah differ at all. Rabbi Nathan Adler cites the two standing side by side in Tehillim 94:6 as evidence that they are synonymous. Rashbam, Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim and Rabbi Avraham Bedersi (Chotam Tochnit) hold they are not, and the Bottom line follows them: the rotzeach of Bamidbar 35:16-18 and Devarim 19:4-6 is the murderer, whether b'mezid or b'shogeg, and Eliyahu's rebuke to Achav is haratzachta v'gam yarashta (Melachim I 21:19). Harigah, by contrast, sits on both sides of the line: the woman put to death by beis din for bestiality is killed with harigah (Vayikra 20:16), because that execution is legally justified, and so is Kayin's killing of Hevel (Bereishis 4:8), which was the first homicide and a murder.
Whether retzichah reaches indirect killing. Bedersi: retzichah is only for the one who did the deed himself, while harigah covers causing a death at a remove, which is why Shaul is said to have killed (harag) the kohanim of Nov (Shmuel I 22:21) and why Nosson tells David oso haragta b'cherev bnei Ammon (Shmuel II 12:9). Abarbanel (to Shemos 20:13) disagrees, citing Shoftim 20:4.
What separates them, if not legality. Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Wertheimer, citing Rabbi Shlomo Galblum's concordance Sefer HaMilim: retzichah is the death blow delivered, while harigah is the act of killing as such.
Whom retzichah covers. Sefer Yeraim (§175) holds retzichah applies only to killing a Jew; Rabbi Yaakov Berger (Milon Leshon Mikra) asks whether that was meant about the word or about the halachah, and leaves it open.
What ketilah means. Menachem Ibn Saruk (Machberes Menachem) identifies the Hebrew ק-ט-ל with the Aramaic and defines both as killing, so that for him the Hebrew ketilah is a synonym of harigah; Rashi likewise renders ketilah, in both languages, as harigah (Ovadiah 1:9; Daniel 2:13; Pesachim 111a; Gittin 59a; Bava Kamma 23b; Chullin 11b; Niddah 20b). Rabbi Nathan Adler holds it need not mean killing at all but striking, since the Gemara speaks of full ketilah against partial ketilah (Bava Kamma 65a; Bava Metzia 95a; Chullin 35b; Niddah 55b), and there is no partial killing. Rabbi Pappenheim splits the languages: in Aramaic it equals harigah and retzichah, but the Hebrew ketilah is striking a man into a helpless state on the verge of death, so that though he may technically still be alive he has effectively been killed; he takes the root as a portmanteau of the biliterals ק-ט, "cutting/submitting," and ט-ל, "throwing/lowering." The column adds that there may be some support for this in Sefer HaChachmah (ascribed to Rabbi Elazar Rokeach of Worms), which has ketilah as killing in a prolonged and tortuous way rather than at one stroke. Hence two accounts of Onkelos's lo tiktol nefesh: Wertheimer, that ketilah alone would have implied animals; Rabbi Adler, only striking.
Distinctions
retzichah (רציחה)
Root ר-צ-ח. The one exception to the rule is Bamidbar 35:27, 35:30, where the go'el hadam who kills the accidental killer is described with retzichah though the killing is permitted; Rav Hirsch (to Shemos 20:13) addresses it. Bedersi draws the practical conclusion from the word's restriction to people: the Aseres HaDibros says lo tirtzach rather than a form of harigah so that the prohibition governs killing people and not animals or plants (contrast Vayikra 20:15, 20:16; Bamidbar 22:39; Yeshayahu 22:13, 27:1 for animals; Tehillim 78:47 for plants). Rabbi Pappenheim reaches it from the other side: only human beings form societies with laws. Rav Hirsch, working his system of etymological links between roots with phonetically similar letters, connects ר-צ-ח to ר-ש-ע, wickedness, which leads him to class murder as the ultimate act of evil and the most heinous of crimes; and to ר-צ-ה, "will," and the Aramaic ר-ש-ה, "permission," so that murder is an illegitimate expression of a man's free will, though otherwise he has permission to want whatever he chooses. Rabbi Yaakov Berger suggests reading ר-צ-ח as a metathesized form of ח-ר-צ, "cutting," the murderer cutting off another's life.
harigah (הריגה)
Root ה-ר-ג. Rabbi Pappenheim traces it to the biliteral ר-ג, subduing something completely by closing or choking it off, since the killer subdues his victim in the most absolute way there is; from the same root he takes regimah, stoning, and arigah, weaving. Rav Hirsch (to Shemos 35:25) hints at the same harigah/arigah link, and (to Bereishis 30:27) connects ה-ר-ג with ע-ר-ג, "desiring/yearning"; Rabbi Aharon Marcus takes the ר-ג family further, to regev (a clump of dirt), regel (foot), rogez (anger) and regesh (feeling), all of them bound up with subduing, conquering or trampling.
ketilah (קטילה)
The standard Targumic rendering of both Hebrew words, seven times in the Aramaic of Daniel (2:13-14, 3:22, 5:19, 5:30, 7:11), and the ordinary verb for killing in Talmudic Aramaic; grammarians use ק-ט-ל as the Aramaic paradigm root the way they use פ-ע-ל in Hebrew. It appears four times in the Hebrew of Tanach (Iyov 13:15, 24:14; Tehillim 139:19; Ovadiah 1:9). In a number of sugyos the Aramaic verb means "cut" rather than "kill" (Shabbos 98a; Eruvin 28b; Moed Katan 12b; Yevamos 121b; Bava Kamma 96a; Sanhedrin 33a, 74b; Shevuos 46a; Bechoros 8b); perhaps, the column suggests, that is its literal sense, cutting the soul away from the body, which is another way of characterizing death, so that ketilah names an aspect of killing without being quite synonymous with harigah and retzichah.
The Mishnah in several places (Shabbos 6:1; Sotah 1:6; Avodah Zarah 1:8; Meilah 5:1; Keilim 11:8) mentions a piece of jewelry called a katla, which Rashi (Shabbos 57b; Sotah 7b) explains is a very tight necklace, a choker. Perhaps, the column suggests, the name relates to ketilah in the sense of killing, since a woman wearing such an adornment might feel as though she were being killed.
mitah (מיתה) and the rabbinic terms
Sometimes the verb for killing is a cognate of mitah, "death," the killer causing death to visit his victim; that verbiage is a general term for death of every sort, whether by natural causes, by murder, or by being killed otherwise. Rabbinic parlance also has netillas neshamah, "taking the soul," and shefichas damim, "spilling blood."
Rendering guidance
- Lo tirtzach: "do not murder." "Thou shalt not kill" is the classic English error, and it makes the Torah forbid what it elsewhere commands.
- Trap: English "kill" absorbs all three roots. Where a passage contrasts them, use "murder" for retzichah and "kill" or "put to death" for harigah.
- הרג of an animal or a plant: "kill," never "murder"; where a king brought a death about at a distance (Shmuel II 12:9), "had him killed."
- קטל in a Targum or a sugya: "kill"; where it means "cut," "cut."
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Yisro: Murder He Wrote," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 20 Shevat 5783 (2023-02-11): https://articles.ohr.edu/articles/yisro-murder-he-wrote; raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/10820-yisro-murder-he-wrote.md. Primary loci cited: Shemos 20:13; Devarim 5:17 (the article prints 5:16) and 19:4-6; Bereishis 4:8, 30:27; Shemos 35:25; Vayikra 20:15, 20:16; Bamidbar 22:39, 35:16-18, 35:27, 35:30; Shoftim 20:4; Shmuel I 22:21; Shmuel II 12:9; Melachim I 21:19; Yeshayahu 22:13, 27:1; Ovadiah 1:9; Tehillim 78:47, 94:6, 139:19; Iyov 13:15, 24:14; Daniel 2:13-14, 3:22, 5:19, 5:30, 7:11; Mishnah Shabbos 6:1, Sotah 1:6, Avodah Zarah 1:8, Meilah 5:1, Keilim 11:8; Shabbos 57b, 98a; Eruvin 28b; Pesachim 111a; Moed Katan 12b; Yevamos 121b; Sotah 7b; Gittin 59a; Bava Kamma 23b, 65a, 96a; Bava Metzia 95a; Sanhedrin 33a, 74b; Shevuos 46a; Chullin 11b, 35b; Bechoros 8b; Niddah 20b, 55b; Chotam Tochnit; Sefer HaMilim; Sefer Yeraim §175; Sefer HaChachmah; Machberes Menachem. The column's closing cross-references to its own earlier essays on mitah and on challal/peger are not reproduced here.