Murder?

Q: Why did God give us a commandment not to murder - when so many of his chosen leaders in the Old Testament slaughtered so many people?

A: Wow, that is an excellent question. To get to the answer, we really have to consider acts of war separate from individual actions.

God told the Israelites to declare war on certain factions when He led them back to Israel. Who were these factions? They were evil people whom God knew would never turn to Him. So He wanted them destroyed, and He (intended to) use the Israelites to do the destroying. But these were always acts of war. There was never a time when God condoned one individual killing another individual. When King David, for example, had a man killed to conceal the affair he'd had with that man's wife, God condemned it and it was considered sin.