DEUT1443 If two men are fighting and the wife of one person attempts to protect her husband by killing her husband's adversary, the threatened man may "cut off her hand" [this verse]. The Chinuch (Sefer Hachinuch, Mitzvah #600) explains that if the threatened man is in mortal danger, he may indeed to kill her in self-defense. ... [This is an example of] the legitimacy of self-defense in Jewish thought and affirm[s] the general concept of "if someone comes to slay you, you should slay him first" (Sanhedrin 72a).