Passages in the Bible
which discuss suicide
Sponsored link.
The Bible contains a number of references to men seeking suicide, either
| by taking direct action or |
| by begging God to kill them on the spot. |
In these passages, the authors of the Bible do not appear to consider suicide to be a great moral sin. The
act of committing suicide or of asking that God kill them are simply reported in a factual
manner. The authors do not interpret these acts as sinful. They seem to be regarded simply as
straightforward personal decisions. However, the Christian church has
traditionally deviated from the biblical message and has considered
suicide to be a great moral sin. Some denominations have even refused to
bury people who have committed suicide.
The New King James translation is quoted here:
Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament):
There are many stories of individuals who either pleaded with God to end
their life, or who killed themselves, or who sought the assistance of another to
kill them:
| Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 contain two similar version of the Ten
Commandments. Both Exodus 20:13 and Deuteronomy 5:17 appear in the King James Version of
the Bible as "Thou shalt not kill." This obviously cannot be
interpreted literally, because people continually kill plants and animals for food. It has
generally been interpreted as meaning that one should not murder a human being, except in
cases of self defense or warfare. Christians are divided over whether these verses include
suicide. Religious conservatives tend to say that it does; many liberals believe that
there are circumstances where suicide is morally justifiable. 10 years experience as a
volunteer at a suicide prevention line has led me to believe that suicide is rarely
justifiable; it is often a permanent solution to a temporary problem. |
| Numbers 11:12-15 Moses was in despair because of the complaints of the
Israelites whom he was leading. The burden of leadership was too heavy for him to bear. He
asked God "If You treat me like this, please kill me here and now..." |
| Judges 9:52-54: The warrior-king of Israel, Abimelech, was attacking a
tower in Thebez, hoping to exterminate large numbers of unarmed
civilians as he had just done in Shechem. As he attempted to burn the
door to the tower, a woman dropped a piece of a millstone on Abimelech's
head. He felt that he was mortally wounded. The king's contempt for women
was so great that he quickly asked his armor bearer to kill him with his
sword, in order that people not say that he had been killed by a woman.
|
| Judges 16:29-30 Samson had been chained to the two middle pillars of a
temple. He pushed them apart. thereby knowingly causing the collapse of the building, his
own suicide and the death of a few thousand people inside. The death toll exceeded the number of people
that he had killed during the rest of his life -which was considerable. Samson had been
blinded, and no longer wanted to live as a captive. And by causing his own death, he had a
chance to destroy many of the enemy. |
| 1 Samuel 31:4-6 In a war against the Philistines, Saul's sons
Johnathan, Abinadab and Malchishua were killed, and Saul himself was seriously wounded. He
asked his armor bearer to kill him, but his assistant refused. So he took a sword and fell
on it. The armor bearer then also fell on his sword. Both committed suicide. These
precise events are
also described in 1 Chronicles 10:3-7. Saul's justification for
committing suicide was that because of his injuries, if the Philistines arrived, he would be abused and killed by
uncircumcised men. |
| 2 Samuel 1:2-17 An unidentified Amalekike man described to
David a very different account about Saul's death. The versions in 1
Samuel 31 and 1 Chronicles 10, describe how Saul committed suicide by
himself, after his armor bearer refused to perform the task. In this
version, Saul had the Amalekite, a stranger, kill him, in a form of
assisted suicide. After hearing the story of how the Amalekike had
carried out the wishes of Saul, David had him executed on the spot,
because he had "slain the LORD's anointed." The implication is
that one can assist in the suicide of a commoner, but not in the case of
a king. There is no criticism of Saul asking for help in committing
suicide. |
| 2 Samuel 17:1-29 Ahithophel recommended that he be allowed to choose
12,000 men, to pursue King David immediately, and kill him. When his advice was not
accepted, he became so depressed that he returned to his city, "put his
household in order, and hanged himself, and died..." |
| 1 King 16:15-20 Zimri, king of Tirzah, saw his city besieged and taken.
He was distressed at the sins that he had committed. He "went into the citadel of
the king's house and burned the king's house down upon himself with fire, and died..." |
| I King 18:40 and 19:4 In an act of vicious religious intolerance,
Elijah ordered 400 priests of Baal executed. Ahab went to Jezebel, telling her that Elijah
had "executed all the prophets with the sword." She swore to kill
Elijah within the next 24 hours. Elijah fled for this life to Beersheba, went into the
wilderness, and "prayed that he might die." He said, "It is
enough! Now, LORD, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!" |
| Jonah 4:1-11 God had threatened the destruction of the Nineveh, a city
of 120,000 people. But the king and people of the city listened to Jonah, repented of
their sins, and fasted. God changed his mind and did not destroy the city. Jonah was so
angry at God's display of mercy that he asked God to kill him, "for it is better
for me to die than to live!" He repeated the same request to God on the next
day. |
Sponsored link:
Christian Scriptures (New Testament) Passages
| Matthew 27:5 After Judas had betrayed Jesus in return for 30 pieces of
silver, he hanged himself. Acts 1:18 is in apparent contradiction to this
passage; it relates how he fell. He "burst open in the middle and all his
entrails gushed out." It is likely that he did not simply fall down, but rather
fell from a height great enough to split his body open. Most religious
liberals would assume that these two very different accounts of the
death were simply the result of different traditional stories related
independently by the anonymous authors of Matthew and Acts. Some
conservative Christians have attempted to harmonize the two stories by
concluding that Judas hanged himself from a tree which hung over a
ravine. The rope broke and he fell to the rocks below, splitting open
his body. |
| 1 Corinthians 3:17: "If anyone defiles the temple of God,
God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you
are." This is an interesting passage because it has been interpreted
in very different ways by Bible commentators and translators:
| An individual defiling his own body:
| Some Bible translations, like the King James Version, and
New King James, render the second word in this passages as "defile."
Rheims New Testament uses "violate." This would seem
to refer to an individual engaging in various damaging acts such as
illegal drug usage, committing adultery, incest, smoking, etc. |
| One commentary suggests that Paul might have been "thinking
ahead to those Cor[inthian] Christians who desecrate god's temple by
the sexual immoralities which he severely censures in" Chapters
5 & 6. 3 |
| Another commentary notes that the two words "defiles" and
"destroy" in the above passage are actually the same word in
the original Greek. It carries the meaning "desecrate."
4 |
| Willmington's Bible Handbook refers to Verses 16 & 17 as
implying that "Many of those in Corinth should be seriously
concerned about the condition of their spiritual building." i.e.
they should be certain that their lifestyle are not desecrating
their bodies. 6 |
|
| Individuals attacking the body of believers:
| The New Living Translation translates verse 16 and 17 as:
"Don't you realize that all of your together are the temple of God
and that the Spirit of God lives in you. God will bring ruin upon
anyone who ruins this temple. For God's temple is holy and you
Christians are that temple." |
| The same commentary as is mentioned above states that the "temple"
here refers to the body of believers: "The destroyers seek to to
subvert the temple itself and will themselves be destroyed."
4 |
| The New Jerome Biblical Commentary translates "holy
temple" as referring to "The [Christian]
community...destroyed by lack of sanctity." 5 |
|
| Individuals committing suicide:
| However, other Bible translations may put an entirely different
slant on this passage. The American Standard Version, New
American Bible, New American Standard Bible, New International
Version, and New Revised Standard Version render the word
as "destroy." That might imply the act of a person committing
suicide. Yet a reference to suicide seems out of place in a chapter
which is called "On Divisions in the Church" in the New
International Version. This may be instances of translators'
personal theology interfering with their choice of English words. |
|
|
| Philippians 1:20-26 Paul is contemplating whether it is better to live
or die. He is hard pressed to decide between the two, "having a desire to
depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Nevertheless to remain in the flesh is
more needful for you...yet what I shall choose I cannot tell." One commentator
writes of this passage that Paul "does not know whether he prefers life with
labor or death with gain...in a life-and-death situation, he scarcely knows which
alternative is to be preferred." He does choose life. 1 |
| Revelation 9:1-10 An angel is described as opening the bottomless pit
to release clouds of locusts. These insects had a body like a horse, hair like a woman's,
a face of a man, and teeth like a lion. They were instructed to attack those people who
"did not have the seal of God on their foreheads." The locusts were to
torment people for five months but not to kill them. They had stingers in their tails like
those of scorpions. Verse 6 says: "In those days men will seek death and will not
find it; they will desire to die, and death will flee from them." i.e. they will
attempt to commit suicide to end the torment, but for some reason, will be unable to
achieve it. |
A related essay and menu on this site:
Reference:
C.M. Laymon, Ed., "The Interpreter's One-Volume Commentary on
the Bible," Abingdon, Nashville TN, (1991), Page 848.
Diane Dew, "Suicide and the Bible," at:
http://www.dianedew.com/suicide.htm
Charles M. Laymon, "The Interpreter's one-volume
commentary on the Bible," Abingdon Press, (1971). Page 798.
J.D. Douglas et al., "New commentary on the whole
Bible: New Testament Volume," Tyndale House, (190), Page 423.
Raymond E. Brown, et al., "The New Jerome Biblical
Commentary," Geoffrey Chapman, (1990), Page 802.
Harold L. Willmington, "Willmington's Bible Handbook," Tyndale House, (1997), Page 680.
Site navigation:
Copyright � 1997 to 2005 by
Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Last update: 2005-OCT-02
Author: B.A. Robinson
| |
|