Some people understand it as an absolute prohibition of taking life, including animal life.
But this view is untenable, since the same law contained an elaborate sacrificial system which required the slaying and offering of animals. Other English versions are right, therefore, to translate the commandment you shall not commit murder'. What it forbids is the unauthorized taking of human life. One of the worst sins, which was repeatedly condemned in the Old Testament was the shedding of innocent blood'. For Scripture insisted on the sanctity not so much of life in general as of human life, because it is the life of human beings made in the image of God.