The Punishment of an Intentional Murderer
עונשו של רוצח במזיד
According to Torah law, if a murderer’s guilt has been proven by valid witnesses, the beit din is obligated to sentence him to death. It is important to note that a death sentence was carried out against a sinner only on rare occasions. The Sages therefore said that any Sanhedrin that executed one person in seven years was called a “destructive Sanhedrin,” because it did not act with restraint in judgment. According to R. Elazar ben Azarya, even if it executed one person in seventy years it was already called a “destructive Sanhedrin” (Makkot 1:10). In any event, for those rare cases in which a death sentence was indeed handed down, precise laws were stated as to how each and every criminal is executed.
There are four forms of execution: stoning, burning, beheading (hereg), and strangulation.¹ The intentional murderer is sentenced to death by hereg, which was carried out by cutting off the murderer’s head with a sword (Sanhedrin 7:3).
There is a special law regarding the execution of a murderer. All other death sentences were carried out by the witnesses or by the officers of the beit din, whereas the sentence of a murderer was carried out by the blood-avenger (go’el ha-dam), as it is stated: “The blood-avenger himself shall put the murderer to death” (Bamidbar 35:21). Anyone who is fit to inherit the murdered person is considered the blood-avenger. However, this is not indispensable: if the murdered person has no relatives, or they do not wish to put the murderer to death with their own hands, the beit din would appoint an agent on its behalf to carry out the sentence.
So important is it to close the terrible breach of the sin of murder, that the Torah specifically warned the beit din not to agree under any circumstances to accept ransom (kofer nefesh) from a murderer who has been sentenced to death. Even if the murderer asks to redeem his life for an enormous fortune, and promises to donate it for the benefit of the poor and needy, and even if the murdered person’s family pleads on his behalf that he not be executed – the beit din is commanded to put him to death. All this is because there is no measure to the value of human life, and all the money in the world is not worth a single soul. Therefore, the Torah was more stringent regarding the sin of bloodshed than regarding any other sin (Rambam, Hilkhot Rotze’aḥ 1:4).
Likewise, we learn of the great severity of murder and the loss of human life from the law of the egla arufa (the calf whose neck is broken), in which the elders of the city must atone for themselves for a murder having occurred in their area without the murderer being punished (see Peninei Halakha, Ha-Am Ve-ha-Aretz 7:2).
Notes (1)
- This is also their order of severity: for the gravest sins against Heaven one is punished by stoning; for example, an idolater is punished by stoning. For less severe sins, by burning; for lesser ones, by hereg; and the death penalty considered the lightest is strangulation. Although the murderer is punished only by the third most severe death penalty, this is because, from the standpoint of rebellion against God, there are more severe transgressions, such as idolatry. However, from the standpoint of the destruction of the world, the murderer’s sin is the gravest of all, as the Rambam wrote in Hilkhot Rotze’aḥ chapter 4, halakha 9, and as will be explained in the next halakha.