  THE CODE OF HAMMURAPI AND THE PENTATEUCH The Text of the Code; Resemblance to and Contrast with the Mosaic Code. The Mosaic Code Not Borrowed from the Babylonian; Different Underlying Conceptions. 1. The Text of the Code; Comparison with the Mosaic Code. The following code of laws was inscribed by order of Hammurapi, of the first dynasty of Babylon (2104-2061 B. C.), on a block of black diorite nearly eight feet in height and set up in Esagila, the temple of Marduk, in Babylon, so that the people might have the laws in the mother-tongue. As this last statement implies, the laws are written in Semitic Babylonian; before the time of Hammurapi the laws had been written in Sumerian. At some later time an Elamite conqueror, who was overrunning Babylonia, took this pillar away to Susa as a trophy. In course of time the pillar was broken into three parts, which were found by the French expedition under de Morgan in December, 1901, and January, 1902, while excavating at Susa. As the code is the oldest known code of laws in the world, being a thousand years older than Moses, and as it affords some interesting peculiarities as well as some striking parallels to the laws in Exodus 21-23 and in Deuteronomy, a translation of it, with some comparison of Exodus and Deuteronomy, is here given: Against Witches § 1. If a man brings an accusation against a man, that he has laid a death-spell upon him, and has not proved it, the accuser shall be put to death.[459] § 2. If a man accuses another of practising sorcery upon him, but has not proved it, he against whom the charge of sorcery is made shall go to the sacred river; into the sacred river he shall plunge, and if the sacred river overpowers him, his accuser shall take possession of his house. If the sacred river shows that man to be innocent, and he is unharmed, he who charged him with sorcery shall be killed. He who plunged into the sacred river shall take the house of his accuser. Note that in these sections the false accuser suffers in just the way he has tried to bring suffering to the other. This is the law of retaliation, which appears in Deut. 19:16-21, where it is applied to false witnesses in the same way as here. It will be found underlying many of the penalties of this code. Laws Concerning False Witness § 3. If in a case a man has borne false witness, or accused a man without proving it, if that case is a capital case, that man shall be put to death. § 4. If he has borne witness in a case of grain or money, the penalty of that case he shall himself bear. Hebrew law was similar; a false witness was to be visited with the penalty which he had purposed to bring upon his brother (Deut. 19:18, 19). Against Reversing a Judicial Decision § 5. If a judge has pronounced a judgment, made a decision, caused it to be sealed, and afterward has altered his judgment, that judge they shall convict on account of the case which he decided and altered; the penalty which in that case he imposed he shall pay twelvefold, and in the assembly from the seat of his judgment they shall expel him; he shall not return; with the judges in a case he shall not sit. Hebrew law presents no parallel to this. Against Theft § 6. If a man steals the goods of a god (temple) or of a palace, that man shall be put to death, and he by whose hand the stolen goods were received shall be put to death. § 7. If a man purchases or receives on deposit either silver, gold, man-servant, maid-servant, ox, sheep, ass, or anything whatever from the hand of a minor or a slave without witnesses or contracts, that man is a thief; he shall be put to death. § 9. If a man, who has lost anything, finds that which was lost in a man’s hand, (and) the man in whose hand the lost thing was found says: “A seller sold it; I bought it before witnesses”; and the owner of the lost thing says: “I will bring witnesses who know that the lost thing is mine”; if the purchaser brings the seller who sold it to him and the witnesses in whose presence it was bought, and the owner of the lost thing brings the witnesses who know that the lost thing is his, the judges shall examine their testimony. The witnesses before whom the purchaser purchased it, and the witnesses who know the lost thing, shall give their testimony in the presence of a god. The seller is a thief; he shall be put to death. The owner of the lost thing shall take that which was lost. The purchaser shall take from the house of the seller the money which he had paid. § 10. If the purchaser does not produce the seller who sold it to him and the witnesses before whom he bought it, and the owner of the lost thing produces the witnesses who know that the lost thing is his, the purchaser is the thief; he shall be put to death. The owner of the lost thing shall take that which he lost. § 11. If the owner of the lost thing does not bring the witnesses who know that the lost thing is his, he is one who has attempted fraud; he shall be put to death. § 12. If the seller has died, the purchaser shall recover from the house of the seller the damages of that case fivefold. § 13. If that man has not his witnesses near, the judges shall set an appointed time within six months; and if, within six months, his witnesses he does not produce, that man is a liar; the penalty of that case he shall himself bear. The Hebrew laws comparable to these are found in Exod. 22:1-4, 9, and Lev. 6:3-5. Exodus directs (v. 1) that, if a man steals an ox or a sheep and kills it or sells it, he shall restore live oxen for an ox and four sheep for a sheep. In case it is not sold he shall restore double (v. 9). No highly organized courts appear in the Biblical codes. The thief was brought before God and his guilt determined by some religious test. The law of Leviticus required a man guilty of theft to restore the lost property, adding to it a fifth more, and to offer a ram in sacrifice. (See Exod. 18:13-26. Cf. 2 Chron. 19:5-7 with 1 Chron. 23:4 and Deut. 16:18-20.) The Babylonian laws presuppose a much more highly organized social community than the Hebrew. Against Stealing Children and Slaves § 14. If a man steals the son of a man who is a minor, he shall be put to death. § 15. If a man causes a male or female slave of a palace, or the male or female slave of a workingman to escape from the city gate, he shall be put to death. § 16. If a man harbors in his house either a male or a female slave who has escaped from a palace or from a workingman, and does not bring him out at the summons of the officer, the owner of that house shall be put to death. § 18. If that slave will not name his owner, he shall bring him unto the palace and they shall investigate his record and restore him unto his owner. § 19. If he shall detain that slave in his house and afterward the slave is found, that man shall be put to death. § 20. If the slave escapes from the hand of his captor, that man shall declare it on oath to the owner of the slave and shall be innocent. These laws are analogous to Exod. 21:16 and Deut. 23:15. The former inflicts the death penalty for stealing a man and selling him, and the latter prohibits one in whose house a fugitive slave has taken refuge from returning the slave to his master. Slavery was not in Israel such a firmly established institution as in Babylonia. (See Exod. 21:2-6; Deut. 15:12-18; Lev. 25:25-46.) Housebreaking and Brigandage § 21. If a man breaks into a house, before that breach he shall be put to death and thrown into it. § 22. If a man practices brigandage and is caught, that man shall be put to death. § 23. If the robber is not caught, the man who is robbed shall declare his loss, whatever it is, in the presence of a god, and the city and governor in whose territory and jurisdiction the robbery was committed shall compensate him for whatever was lost. § 24. If it is a life, that city and governor shall pay to his relatives 1 mana of silver.[460] Hebrew law presents an analogy to the last of these sections in Deut. 21:1-9, though in Israel no compensation was offered to the heirs of the man who was slain, but a sacrifice was performed by the elders of the nearest city, to purge it of innocent blood. Stealing at a Fire § 25. If a fire breaks out in a man’s house, and a man who has come to extinguish it shall cast his eye upon the furniture of the owner of the house, and the furniture of the owner of the house shall take, that man shall be thrown into that fire. The Duties and Privileges of Soldiers, Constables, and Tax-collectors § 26. If a soldier or a constable[461] who is ordered to go on a journey for the king does not go, but hires a substitute and dispatches him instead, that soldier or constable shall be put to death; his hired substitute shall appropriate his house. § 27. If a soldier or a constable is detained in a royal fortress and after him § 28. If a soldier or a constable who is detained in a royal fortress has a son who is able to carry on his business, they shall give to him his field and garden and he shall carry on the business of his father. § 29. If his son is small and not able to carry on the business of his father, they shall give one-third of his field and garden to his mother and she shall rear him. § 30. If a soldier or a constable from the beginning of his appointment neglects his field, garden, and house and leaves them uncared for, another after him shall take his field, garden, and house, and carry on his business for three years. If he returns and desires his field, garden, and house, they shall not give them to him. He who has taken them and carried on the business shall carry it on. § 31. If he leaves it uncared for but one year and returns, they shall give him his field, garden, and house, and he shall carry on his own business. § 32. If a merchant ransoms a soldier (?) or a constable who, on a journey of the king, was detained, and brings him back, to his city, if in his house there is sufficient ransom, he shall ransom himself. If in his house there is not sufficient to ransom him, by the temple of his city he shall be ransomed. If in the temple of his city there is not a sufficient ransom, he shall be ransomed by the palace. His field, garden, and house shall not be given for ransom. § 33. If a governor or a magistrate harbors a deserting soldier or accepts and sends a hired substitute on an errand of the king, that governor or magistrate shall be put to death. § 34. If a governor or a magistrate takes the property of a soldier, plunders a soldier, or hires out a soldier, has defrauded a soldier in a suit before a sheik, or takes the present which the king has given to a soldier, that governor or magistrate shall be put to death. § 35. If a man buys the cattle or sheep which the king has given to a soldier, he shall forfeit his money. § 36. One shall not sell the field, garden, or house of a soldier, constable, or tax-collector. § 37. If a man has bought the field, garden, or house of a soldier, constable, or tax-collector, his tablet shall be broken, he shall forfeit his money; the field, house, or garden shall return to its owner. § 38. A soldier, constable, or tax-collector shall not deed to his wife or daughter the field, house, or garden, which is his perquisite, nor shall he assign them for debt. § 39. A field, garden, or house which he has purchased and possesses he may deed to his wife or daughter, or may assign for debt. § 40. A priestess, merchant, or other creditor may purchase his field, garden, or house. The purchaser shall conduct the business of the field, garden, or house which he has purchased. § 41. If a man has bargained for the field, garden, or house of a soldier, constable, or tax-collector and has given sureties, the soldier, constable, or tax-collector shall return to the field, house, or garden, and the sureties which were given him he shall keep. No such officers as these are mentioned in the laws of the Old Testament, though some of them appear in earlier times in the records of Babylonia. The tax-collectors mentioned here remind us of Solomon’s tax-collectors mentioned in 1 Kings 4:7, ff. Laws of Agriculture § 42. If a man rents a field for cultivation and produces no grain in that field, they shall call him to account for doing no work in that field, and he shall give to the owner of the field grain similar to that of adjacent fields. § 43. If he does not cultivate that field and neglects it, he shall give the owner of the field grain similar to that of adjacent fields, and the field which he neglected he shall break up with mattocks, he shall harrow, and return it to the owner of the field. § 44. If a man rents an uncultivated field for three years for improvement and neglects its surface and does not develop the field, in the fourth year he shall break up the field with mattocks, he shall hoe and harrow it, and return it unto the owner of the field, and for every Gan of land he shall measure out 10 Gur of grain. § 45. If a man lets his field for pay on shares to a farmer and receives his rent, and afterward the storm-god inundates the field and carries off the produce, the loss is the farmer’s. § 46. If the rent of his field he has not received, and he has let the field for one-half or one-third (of the crop), the farmer and the owner of the field shall divide the grain which is in the field according to agreement. § 47. If the farmer, because he has not in a former year received a maintenance, entrusts the field to another farmer, the owner of the field shall not interfere. He would cultivate it, and his field has been cultivated. At the time of harvest he shall take grain according to his contracts. § 48. If a man has a debt against him and the storm-god inundates his field and carries away the produce, or if through lack of water grain has not grown in the field, in that year he shall not make a return of grain to his creditor; his contract he shall change, and the interest of that year he shall not pay. § 49. If a man borrows money from a merchant, and has given to the merchant a field planted with grain or sesame, and says to him: “Cultivate the field and harvest and take the grain or sesame which it produces”; if the tenant produces grain or sesame in the field, at the time of harvest the owner of the field shall take the grain or sesame which was produced by the field, and shall give to the merchant grain for the money which he borrowed from the merchant with its interest, and for the maintenance of the farmer. § 50. If the field was already planted [with grain or] sesame, the owner of the field shall receive the grain or the sesame which is produced in the field, and the money and its interest he shall return to the merchant. § 51. If there is not money to return, he shall give to the merchant [the grain or] sesame for the money and its interest which he had received from the merchant, according to the scale of prices fixed by the king. § 52. If the farmer does not produce grain or sesame in his field, he shall not alter his contract. § 53. If a man the side of his strong dyke has neglected and has not strengthened it, and in his dyke a break occurs, and the water destroys the farm-land, the man in whose dyke the break occurred shall restore the grain which was destroyed. § 54. If he is not able to restore the grain, they shall sell him and his possessions for money, and the owners of the fields whose grain was destroyed shall share it. § 55. If a man has opened his sluice for watering and has left it open and the water destroys the field of his neighbor, he shall measure out grain to him on the basis of that produced by neighboring fields. § 57. If a shepherd causes his sheep to eat vegetation and has not made an agreement with the owner of the field, and without the consent of the owner of the field has pastured his sheep, the owner of the field shall harvest that field, and the shepherd who without the consent of the owner of the field caused his sheep to eat the field, shall pay the owner of the field in addition 20 Gur of grain for each Bur of land. § 58. If, after the sheep have come up out of the fields and are turned loose on the public common by the city gate, a shepherd turns his sheep into a field and causes the sheep to eat the field, the shepherd shall oversee the field which he caused to be eaten, and at harvest-time he shall measure to the owner of the field 60 Gur of grain for each Bur of land. The Hebrew land laws are found in Exod. 22:5, 6; 23:10, 11; Lev. 19:9, and Deut. 24:19-22; 23:24, 25. An examination of these passages reveals a wide difference between Babylonia and Israel. In Babylonia it seems to have often been the rule that a landlord let out the fields to tenants to work; among the Hebrews the law presupposes that each man shall work his own land. Many of the Babylonian laws are designed to secure the respective rights of landlord and tenant. Naturally, there is nothing in the Old Testament to correspond to these. Hebrew law (Exod. 22:5), like the Babylonian, provides that one who causes a neighbor’s crop to be eaten shall make restitution, but the regulations are of the most general character. In Babylonia a larger social experience had made much more specific regulations necessary. The characters of the respective countries are reflected in the dangers from which crops might be threatened. In waterless Palestine a fire started by a careless man might burn his neighbor’s crop (Exod. 22:6); in Babylonia, where irrigation from canals was conducted to fields lower than the surface of the water, one might flood his neighbor’s field and destroy his crop by carelessly leaving his sluice open. The Hebrew legislation presupposes a poorer community. It provides that the land shall lie fallow, and whatever it produces shall belong to the poor (Exod. 23:10, 11). At harvest-time, too, one must not reap the corners of his field; that was left to the poor (Lev. 19:9). If one forgot a sheaf in his field, he must not return to take it; that should be left to the poor (Deut. 24:19). Rich Babylonia made no such provision for the poor; it felt no such social sympathy. Horticultural Laws § 59. If a man shall cut down a tree in a man’s orchard without the consent of the owner, he shall pay ½ mana of silver. § 60. If a man gives a field to a gardener to plant as an orchard, the gardener shall plant the orchard and cultivate it for 4 years. In the fifth year the owner of the orchard and the gardener shall share it together. The owner of the orchard shall mark off his share and take it. § 61. If the gardener in planting does not complete it, but leaves a part of it waste, unto his portion they shall count it. § 62. If the field which is given to a gardener he does not plant, if vegetation is the produce of the field for the years during which it is neglected, the gardener shall measure out to the owner of the field on the basis of the adjacent fields, and shall perform the work on the field and restore it to the owner of the field. § 63. If the field is [left] waste land, he shall perform the work on the field and shall restore it to its owner, and 10 Gur of grain for each Bur of land he shall measure out. § 64. If a man lets his orchard to a gardener to manage, as long as the gardener is in possession of the garden he shall give to the owner of the garden two-thirds of the produce; one-third he shall take himself. § 65. If the gardener does not manage the garden and diminishes its produce, the gardener shall measure out the produce of the orchard on the basis of adjacent orchards.[463] § 66. If a man has received money from a merchant, and his merchant puts him under bonds and he has nothing to give, and he gives his orchard for management unto the merchant and says: “The dates as many as are in my orchard take for thy money,” that merchant shall not consent; the owner of the orchard shall take the dates that are in the orchard and the money and its interest according to the tenor of his agreement he shall bring to the merchant. The remaining dates from the orchard shall belong to the owner of the orchard. As in Palestine, there was no system of rental; the Bible contains almost no horticultural laws. “Orchards” in Babylonia were, as the last section shows, date orchards. The corresponding fruit in Palestine was the grape. Hebrew laws deal with vineyards as with fields. If a man destroys the crop in another’s vineyard, he is to give the best of his own (Exod. 22:5). He is to leave his crop unpicked every seventh year for the poor (Exod. 23:11). He is not, when he gathers it, to glean it carefully, but leave some for the Five columns of writing have been erased after § 65 from the column on which the laws are written. This erasure was probably made by the Elamite conqueror, who carried the column as a trophy to Susa, in order to inscribe his own name on it, but unfortunately, if that was the intention, it was never carried out. We are accordingly in ignorance of his name. It is estimated that 35 sections of laws were thus lost. As already noted, one can be supplied from a fragment found at Susa, and from other tablets fragments of two or three other sections can be made out. One of these incomplete fragments refers to the rights of tenants of houses. It reads: [If] a man rents a house for money, and pays the whole rent for a year to the owner of the house, and the owner of the house orders that man to vacate before the expiration of his lease, the owner of the house from the money that he received shall ............ Unfortunately, the tablet is broken and the penalty for breaking the lease is unknown. It is interesting to know that Babylonian tenants were protected from avaricious landlords, even though no parallel law exists in the Old Testament. Two other sections of laws that once stood in this lacuna can now be supplied from a considerably defaced tablet from Nippur in the University Museum in Philadelphia, which once contained a part or all of the code of Hammurapi. These sections are as follows: A Bankrupt Law[464] If a man borrows grain or money from a merchant and for the payment has no grain or money, whatever is in his hand he shall in the presence of the elders give to the merchant in place of the debt; the merchant shall not refuse it; he shall receive it. A Partnership Law[465] If a man gives money to a man for a partnership, the gain and profit that accrue are before the gods; together they shall do business. The phrase “before the gods” means that the division shall be made on oath. Commercial life was not sufficiently developed After the erasure of five columns the laws have to do with agents or traveling salesmen. Agents and Merchants § 100. [If an agent has received money from a merchant, he shall write down the amount and the amount of] the interest on the money, and, when the time has expired, he shall repay the merchant as much as he has received. § 101. If where he goes he does not meet with success, the agent shall double the amount of the money he received and return it to the merchant. § 102. If a merchant gives money to an agent as a favor, and where he goes he meets with misfortune, he shall restore the principal unto the merchant. § 103. If on the road as he travels an enemy robs him of anything he carries, the agent shall give an account of it under oath and shall be innocent. § 104. If a merchant has given to an agent grain, wool, or oil, or anything whatever to sell, the agent shall write down the price and shall return the money to the merchant. The agent shall take a receipt for the money which he gives to the merchant. § 105. If the agent is careless and does not take a receipt for the money he gave the merchant, money not receipted for shall not be placed to his account. § 106. If an agent receives money from a merchant and has a dispute with his merchant about it, that merchant shall put the agent on trial on oath before the elders concerning the money he received and the agent shall pay the merchant three times as much as he received. § 107. If a merchant lends to an agent and the agent returns to the merchant whatever the merchant had given him, if the merchant has a dispute with him about it, that agent shall put the merchant on trial on oath in the presence of the elders, and the merchant, because he had a dispute with his agent, whatever he received he shall give to the agent six times as much. The Hebrews of the Old Testament time were not a commercial people and had no such laws. Men today are inclined to think that the drummer, or traveling salesman, is a modern invention, but these laws show that he was an old institution in Babylonia four thousand years ago. Wine Merchants § 108. If a woman who keeps a wine-shop does not receive grain as the price of drink, but takes money of greater value, or makes the measure of drink smaller than the measure of grain, that mistress of a wine-shop they shall put on trial and into the water shall throw her. § 109. If the mistress of a wine-shop collects criminals in her house, and does not seize these criminals and conduct them to the palace, that mistress of a wine-shop shall be put to death. § 110. If the wife of a god (i. e., a consecrated temple-woman), who is not living in the house appointed, opens a wine-shop or enters a wine-shop for a drink, they shall burn that woman. § 111. If the mistress of a wine-shop gives 60 Qa of sakani-plant drink on credit at the time of harvest, she shall receive 50 Qa of grain. Deposits and Distraints § 112. If a man continually traveling has given silver, gold, precious stones, or property to a man and has brought them to him for transportation, and that man does not deliver that which was for transportation at the place to which it was to be transported, but has appropriated it, the owner of the transported goods shall put that man on trial concerning that which was to be transported and was not delivered, and that man shall deliver unto the owner of the transported goods five times as much as was entrusted to him. § 113. If a man has grain or money deposited with a man and without the consent of the owner he takes grain from the heap or the granary, they shall prosecute that man because he took grain from the heap or the granary without the consent of the owner, and the grain as much as he took he shall return, and whatever it was he shall forfeit an equal amount. § 114. If a man does not have against a man [a claim] for grain or money and secures a warrant against him for debt, for each warrant he shall pay ? of a mana of money. § 115. If a man holds against a man [a claim] for grain or money and secures a warrant against him for debt and the debtor dies through his fate in the house of the creditor, that case has no penalty. § 116. If the debtor dies through violence or lack of care, the owner of the debtor shall prosecute the merchant; if it was the son of a man, his son shall be put to death; if the slave of a man, he shall pay ? of a mana of money, and whatever [the debt] was, he shall forfeit as much. Among the Hebrews, as among other ancient peoples, the poor at times deposited their valuables with the more powerful for safekeeping. This was natural before the invention of banks and safe deposit vaults. The Hebrew law in Exod. 22:7-10 provides that if goods are given to another man to keep and are stolen out of his house, the thief should, if found, restore double the amount taken. If the thief was not found, the owner of the house should be brought to God (so American R. V.)[466], i. e., to the temple, where in some way (probably by lot) it was determined whether he was guilty. If guilty, the owner of the house had to restore twofold. Somewhat parallel to the Babylonian laws which permit the imprisonment of a debtor in one’s house is the Hebrew law that a poor debtor might become a slave for six years (Exod. 21:2-6; Deut. 15:7-18). The Old Testament laws are not quite uniform. In reality it is only that of Deuteronomy which contemplates slavery in consequence of indebtedness; Exodus speaks as though As to the deposit of valuable property with a creditor for security, the Hebrew law, while it shows that there were other kinds of pledges (Deut. 24:10, ff.), mentions but one kind. This was in the case of a man so poor that he had to give his outer garment as security. The law provided that this should be returned to him at night, since the poor peasants had no other blankets than these garments. A hard-hearted creditor might, by keeping the garment at night, risk the life of the debtor (Exod. 22:26, 27; Deut. 24:11-13). Debts § 117. If a man is subjected to an attachment for debt and sells his wife, son, or daughter, or they are given over to service, for three years they shall work in the house of their purchaser or temporary master; in the fourth year they shall be set free. § 118. If he binds to service a male or a female slave, and the merchant transfers or sells him, he can establish no claim. § 119. If a man is subjected to an attachment for debt and sells a maid-servant who has borne him children, the owner of the maid-servant shall pay and shall release his maid-servant. These laws are quite similar to Exod. 21:2-11 and Deut. 15:12-18. The main differences are that the Hebrew law contemplates that a man may enter slavery himself; the Babylonian only that he shall permit his wife, son, or daughter to do it. The Hebrews released such slaves at the end of six years;[467] the Babylonians at the end of three. Hebrew law recognized, too, that a man might sell his daughter into slavery (Exod. 21:7-11), but it stipulated that her treatment should be different from that of men. It recognizes that either her master or his son would be likely to make her a real or a secondary wife. She was not to be released at the end of seven years, but in case her master did not deal with her in certain specified ways she regained her freedom regardless of her period of service. Storage of Grain § 120. If a man has stored his grain in heaps in the building of another and an accident happens in the granary, or the owner of the building has disturbed the § 121. If a man stores grain in a man’s building, he shall pay each year 5 Qa of grain for each Gur of grain. These laws have no Biblical parallel. Deposits and Losses § 122. If a man gives to another on deposit silver or gold or anything whatever, anything as much as he deposits he shall recount to witnesses and shall institute contracts and make the deposit. § 123. If without witnesses and contracts he has placed anything on deposit and at the place of deposit they dispute it, that case has no penalty. § 124. If a man gives to another on deposit silver or gold or anything whatever in the presence of witnesses and he disputes it, he shall prosecute that man and he shall double whatever he disputed and shall repay it. § 125. If a man places anything on deposit and at the place of deposit either through burglary or pillage anything of his is lost, together with anything belonging to the owner of the building, the owner of the building who was negligent and lost what was given him on deposit shall make it good and restore it to the owner of the goods. The owner of the house shall institute a search for whatever was lost and take it from the thief. § 126. If a man has not lost anything, but says he has lost something, or files a claim as though he had lost something, he shall give account of his claim on oath, and whatever he brought suit for he shall double and shall give for his claim. There is no mention in the laws of the Old Testament of this kind of deposit, though, as already noted, it probably was sometimes practised. Against Slandering Women § 127. If a man causes the finger to be pointed at the woman of a god or the wife of a man and cannot prove it, they shall bring him before the judges and they shall brand his forehead. The nearest parallel to this in the Old Testament is in Deut. 22:13-21, which is really quite a different law, for it applies only to cases where men, when just married, slander their wives by charging them with previous impurity. The Hebrew law provides a method of trial, a punishment for the man, if guilty, and a much severer one for the woman, if the charge is true. The two codes belong to quite a different legal development, as is shown by the fact that the Babylonian law refers to “a woman of a god,” i. e., one of the temple-women who, under certain religious rules, represented in a concrete way the procreative power of the god. Chastity, Marriage, and Divorce § 128. If a man takes a wife and does not execute contracts for her, that woman is no wife. § 129. If the wife of a man is caught lying with another man, they shall bind them and throw them into the water. If the husband of the woman would let her live, or the king would let his subject live, he may do so. § 130. If a man forces the betrothed wife of another who is living in her father’s house and has not known a man, and lies in her loins and they catch him, that man shall be put to death and that woman shall go free. § 131. If the wife of a man is accused by her husband, and she has not been caught lying with another man, she shall swear her innocence and return to her house. § 132. If the finger has been pointed at the wife of a man because of another man and she has not been caught lying with the other man, for her husband’s sake she shall plunge into the sacred river. § 133. If a man is taken captive and there is food in his house, his wife shall not go out from his house, her body she shall guard, into the house of another she shall not enter. If that woman does not guard her body and enters into the house of another, that woman they shall prosecute and throw her into the water. § 134. If a man is taken captive and in his house there is no food, and his wife enters into the house of another, that woman is not to blame. § 135. If a man is taken captive and there is no food in his house and his wife has openly entered into the house of another and borne children, and afterwards her husband returns and reaches his city, that woman shall return to her husband and the children shall follow their father. § 136. If a man deserts his city and flees and after it his wife enters into the house of another, if that man returns and would take his wife, because he deserted his city and fled, the wife of the fugitive shall not return to the house of her husband. § 137. If a man sets his face against a concubine who has borne him children or a wife that has presented him with children, to put her away, he shall return to that woman her marriage portion, and shall give her the income of field, garden, and house, and she shall bring up her children. From the time that her children are grown, from whatever is given to her children, a portion like that of a son shall be given to her, and the husband of her choice she may marry. § 138. If a man would put away his spouse who has not borne him children, he shall give her silver equal to her marriage gift, and the dowry which she brought from her father’s house he shall restore to her and may put her away. § 139. If she had no dowry, he shall give her one mana of silver for a divorce. § 140. If he belongs to the laboring class, he shall give her one-third of a mana of silver. § 141. If the wife of a man who is living in the house of her husband sets her face to go out and act the fool, her house neglects and her husband belittles, they shall prosecute that woman. If her husband says: “I divorce her,” he may divorce her. On her departure nothing shall be given her for her divorce. If her husband does not say: “I divorce her,” her husband may take another wife; that woman shall dwell as a slave in the house of her husband. § 142. If a woman hates her husband and says: “Thou shalt not hold me,” they shall make investigation concerning her into her defects. If she has been discreet and there is no fault, and her husband has gone out and greatly § 143. If she has not been discreet, and has gone out and neglected her house and belittled her husband, they shall throw that woman into the water. § 144. If a man takes a priestess and that priestess gives a female slave to her husband, and she has children; if that man sets his face to take a concubine, they shall not favor that man. He may not take a concubine. § 145. If a man takes a priestess and she does not present him with children and he sets his face to take a concubine, that man may take a concubine and bring her into his house. That concubine shall not rank with the wife. § 146. If a man takes a priestess and she gives to her husband a maid-servant and she bears children, and afterward that maid-servant would take rank with her mistress; because she has borne children her mistress may not sell her for money, but she may reduce her to bondage and count her among the female slaves. § 147. If she has not borne children, her mistress may sell her for money. § 148. If a man takes a wife and she is attacked by disease, and he sets his face to take another, he may do it. His wife who was attacked by disease he may not divorce. She shall live in the house he has built and he shall support her as long as she lives. § 149. If that woman does not choose to live in the house of her husband, he shall make good to her the dowry which she brought from her father’s house and she may go away. § 150. If a man presents his wife with field, garden, house, or goods, and gives to her sealed deeds, after her husband’s death her children shall not press a claim against her. The mother after her death may leave it to her child whom she loves, but to a brother she may not leave it. § 151. If a wife who is living in the house of a husband has persuaded her husband and he has bound himself that she shall not be taken by a creditor of her husband; if that man had a debt against him before he took that woman, the creditor may not hold that woman, and if that woman had a debt against her before she entered the house of her husband, her creditor may not hold her husband. § 152. If they become indebted after the woman enters the man’s house, both of them are liable to the merchant. § 153. If a woman causes the death of her husband on account of another man, that woman they shall impale. § 154. If a man has known his daughter, the city shall drive out that man. § 155. If a man has betrothed a bride to his son and his son has known her and he afterward lies in her loins and they catch him, they shall bind that man and throw him into the water. § 156. If a man has betrothed a bride to his son and his son has not known her and he lies in her loins, he shall pay her half a mana of silver and restore to her whatever she brought from the house of her father, and the man of her choice may marry her. § 157. If a man after his father’s death lies in the loins of his mother, they shall burn both of them. § 158. If a man after his father’s death is admitted to the loins of his chief wife who has borne children, that man shall be expelled from the house of his father. § 159. If a man who has brought a present unto the house of his father-in-law and has given a bride-price looks with longing upon another woman, and says to his father-in-law: “Thy daughter I will not take,” the father of the daughter shall keep whatever was brought to him. § 161. If a man brings a present to the house of his father-in-law and gives a bride-price, and his neighbor slanders him, and the father says to the groom: “Thou shalt not take my daughter,” whatever was brought he shall double and restore to him. These Babylonian laws present numerous points of contact and of divergence, when compared with the Biblical laws on the same subject. There is no Biblical parallel to § 128. The law (§ 129) which imposes the death penalty upon a man who commits adultery with another man’s wife and upon the woman, finds an exact parallel in Lev. 20:10 and Deut. 22:22, though the Biblical law, unlike the Babylonian, provides no way in which clemency could be extended to the offenders. The laws in §§ 130, 156, concerning the violation of betrothed virgins, are in a general way paralleled by Lev. 19:20-22 and Deut. 22:23-26, though there are such differences that, while the underlying principles are the same, it is clear that there was entire independence of development. A religious element enters into Leviticus that is entirely absent from the Babylonian code. The Bible contains two laws on this subject that are without parallel in the Babylonian code. These are found in Exod. 22:16, 17 and Deut. 22:28, 29, and impose penalties for the violation of virgins who were not betrothed. In both codes the principle is manifest that the loss of a girl’s honor was to be compensated by money, though Deut. 22:28, 29 recognizes that it has a value that money cannot buy. The laws relating to a wife whose fidelity is suspected (§§ 131, 132) find a general parallel in Num. 5:11-28. The provision at the end of § 132 that the wife should plunge into the sacred river is in the nature of trial by ordeal. The law in Numbers imposes on such a woman trial by ordeal, though it is of a different sort. She must drink water in which dust from the floor of the sanctuary is mingled—dust surcharged with divine potency—and if she does not swell up and die, she is counted innocent. The laws which provide that a wife may present her husband with a slave-girl as a concubine (§§ 137, 144-147) are without parallel in the Biblical codes, but are strikingly illustrated by the patriarchal narratives. Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham (Gen. 16); Rachel and Leah gave Bilhah and Zilpah to Jacob (Gen. 30:1-13). The laws on divorce (§§ 138-141) are really in advance of the one Biblical law on the subject (Deut. 24:1-4). The law in Deuteronomy permits a husband to put away a wife, who in any way does not please him, without alimony, while to the wife no privilege of initiating divorce proceedings is granted at all. The Babylonian laws secure to the divorced woman a maintenance, and, while by no means according her equal rights with the man, provide (§ 142) that she may herself initiate the proceedings for divorce. The ordeal must have been an unpleasant one, but in Israel’s law a woman had no such rights.[468] The law concerning adultery with a daughter-in-law (§ 155) is identical in purpose and severity with Lev. 20:12. The laws in §§ 157, 158, which prohibit immorality with one’s mother or the chief wife of one’s father, just touch upon the great subject of incest and the prohibited degrees of marriage which are treated at considerable length in Lev. 18:6-18; 20:11, 19-21, and Deut. 22:30. The Babylonian laws touch but two specific cases, which may be said to be covered by Deut. 22:30, while the laws of Leviticus treat the whole subject of the prohibited degrees of marriage in a broad and comprehensive way. The main idea pervading Leviticus is holiness. Israel is to be kept free from the pollution of incest in any form. The religious motive exhibited here is foreign to the Babylonian code. Inheritance § 162. It a man takes a wife and she bears him children and that woman dies, her father may not lay claim to her dowry. Her dowry belongs to her children. § 163. If a man takes a wife and she does not present him with children and that woman dies; if his father-in-law returns unto him the marriage-settlement, which that man brought to the house of the father-in-law, unto the dowry of that woman her husband may not lay claim. Her dowry belongs to the house of her father. § 164. But if his father-in-law does not return the marriage-settlement unto him, he shall deduct from her dowry the amount of the marriage-settlement, and then return the dowry to the house of her father. § 166. If a man takes wives for the sons which he possesses, but has not taken a wife for his youngest son, and afterward the father dies; when the brothers divide, for their younger brother who does not have a wife they shall present over and above his portion money for a marriage-settlement, and shall enable him to take a wife. § 167. If a man takes a wife and she bears him children and that woman dies, and after her he takes a second and she bears him children, after the father dies, the children shall not share according to their mothers. They shall receive the dowries of their respective mothers, and the goods of their father’s house they shall share equally. § 168. If a man has set his face to cut off his son, and says to the judges: “I will cut off my son,” the judges shall make investigation concerning him; if the son has not committed a grave crime which cuts off from sonship, the father may not cut off his son from sonship. § 169. If he has committed against his father a grave crime which cuts off from sonship, he shall pardon him for the first offense. If he commits a grave crime the second time, the father may cut off his son from sonship. § 170. If a man’s wife bears him children and a slave-girl bears him children, and the father during his lifetime says to the children which the slave-girl bore him: “My children,” and counts them with the children of the wife, after the father dies the children of the wife and the children of the slave-girl shall divide equally the goods of their father’s house. The sons that are sons of the wife shall at the sharing divide and take. § 171. But if the father during his lifetime has not said unto the children which the slave-girl bore him: “My children,” after the father dies the children of the slave-girl shall not share with the children of the wife. The slave-girl and her children shall be given their freedom; the children of the wife may not put a claim upon the children of the slave-girl for service. The wife shall receive her dowry and a gift which her husband gave her and wrote upon a tablet and may dwell in the dwelling of her husband as long as she lives and eat. She may not sell it. After her it belongs to her children. § 172. If her husband has not given her a gift, they shall restore to her her dowry and she shall receive from the goods of the house of her husband the portion of one son. If the children abuse her in order to drive her from the house, the judges shall investigate concerning her and if they find the children in the wrong, that woman shall not go from the house of her husband. If that woman sets her face to go out, she shall leave with her children the gift which her husband gave her; the dowry from the house of her father she shall receive and the husband of her choice may take her. § 173. If that woman, where she has entered, bears children to her later husband, after that woman dies the children of her first and her later husband shall share her dowry. § 174. If she did not bear children to her later husband, the children of her first husband shall receive her dowry. § 175. If a slave of the palace or the slave of a workingman takes the daughter of a patrician and she bears children, the owner of the slave shall have no claim for service on the children of the daughter of a patrician. § 176. But if a slave of the palace or the slave of a workingman takes the daughter of a patrician, and when he takes her she enters together with the dowry from her father’s house into the house of the slave of the palace or the § 177. If a widow whose children are minors sets her face to enter the house of a second husband, she shall not do it without the consent of the judges. When she enters the house of a second husband, the judges shall inquire into the estate of her former husband, and the estate of the former husband they shall entrust to the second husband and to that woman, and shall cause them to leave a tablet (receipt). The estate they shall guard and rear the minors. The household goods they may not sell. The purchaser of household goods belonging to the children of a widow shall forfeit his money. The goods shall revert to their owners. § 178. If there is a wife of a god, priestess, or sacred harlot, whose father has given her a dowry and written her a record of gift, and in the record of gift he has not written, “after her she may give it to whomsoever she pleases,” and has not given her full discretion; after her father dies her brothers shall take her field and garden, and according to the value of her share they shall give her grain, oil, and wool, and shall content her heart. If her brothers shall not give her grain, oil, and wool, according to the value of her share, and shall not content her heart, she may let her field and garden unto any tenant she pleases and her tenant shall maintain her. Her field, garden, or whatever her father gave her she may enjoy as long as she lives. She may not sell it for money or transfer it to another. Her heritage belongs to her brothers. § 179. If there is a wife of a god, priestess, or sacred harlot, whose father has given her a dowry and written a record of gift; and in the record of gift he has written, “after her she may give it to whomsoever she pleases,” and has granted her full discretion; after her father dies she may give it after her to whomsoever she pleases. Her brothers have no claim upon her. § 180. If a father does not give a dowry to his daughter, a priestess living in the appointed house, or a sacred harlot, after the father dies she shall receive from the goods of her father’s house the same share as one son, and as long as she lives she shall enjoy it. After her it belongs to her brothers. § 181. If the father of a priestess, sacred harlot, or temple maiden gives her to a god and does not give her a dowry, after the father dies she shall receive from the goods of her father’s house a third of the portion of a son and shall enjoy it as long as she lives. After her it belongs to her brothers. § 182. If a father does not give a dowry to his daughter, a priestess of Marduk of Babylon, and does not write a record of gift for her; after her father dies she shall receive from the goods of her father’s house one-third of the portion of a son, and shall pay no tax. A priestess of Marduk after her death may leave it to whomsoever she pleases. § 183. If a father presents a dowry to his daughter who is a concubine, and gives her to a husband and writes a record of gift; after the father dies she shall not share in the goods of her father’s house. § 184. If a father does not present a dowry to his daughter who is a concubine and does not give her to a husband; after her father’s death her brothers shall give her a dowry according to the value of the father’s estate and shall give her to a husband. Such were the Hebrew laws of inheritance. They apply to a much less complexly organized society than the Babylonian. §§ 168, 169 of Hammurapi’s code deal with the cutting off of a son. This is paralleled in Deut. 21:18-21, though punishment inflicted by the law in Deuteronomy is quite different from the Babylonian, since the Hebrew boy, whose parents have proved him before the elders to be unworthy of sonship, was not cast out and sent away, but stoned to death. Another form of this law appears in Exod. 21:17. Adoption § 185. If a man takes a young child in his name unto sonship and brings him up, one may not bring a claim for that adopted son. § 186. If a man takes a young child unto sonship, and when he has taken him he rebels against his [adopted] father and mother, that foster-child shall return to his father’s house. § 187. One may not bring claim for the son of a temple-servant, a palace guard, or of a sacred harlot. § 188. If an artisan takes a son to sonship and teaches him his handicraft, one may not bring claim for him. § 189. If he does not teach him his handicraft, that foster-son may return to the house of his father. § 190. If a man does not count among his sons a young child whom he has taken to sonship and reared, that foster-child may return to his father’s house. § 191. If a man who takes a young child to sonship and rears him and establishes a house and acquires children, afterward sets his face to cut off that foster-son, that son shall not go his way. The father who reared him shall give him from his goods one-third the share of a son and he shall go. From field, garden, or house, he shall not give him. Renunciation of Sonship § 192. If the son of a temple-servant or the son of a sacred harlot says to the father that brought him up or to the mother that brought him up, “Thou art not my father,” or, “Thou art not my mother,” they shall cut out his tongue. § 193. If the son of a temple-servant or the son of a sacred harlot has identified his father’s house and hated the father who brought him up or the mother who brought him up and goes back to his father’s house, they shall pluck out his eye. The Old Testament has no laws with which to compare these. The two classes of persons whose children are mentioned were banished from Israel by Deut. 23:17, 18. Wet-nurses or Foster-mothers § 194. If a man gives his son unto a nurse and his son dies in the hands of the nurse and the nurse substitutes another child without the consent of the father or the mother, they shall prosecute her; because she substituted another child without the consent of his father or his mother they shall cut off her breast. This law also is without Biblical parallel. Assault and Battery § 195. If a son strikes his father, they shall cut off his hand. § 196. If a man destroys the eye of the son of a patrician, they shall destroy his eye. § 197. If he breaks a man’s bone, they shall break his bone. § 198. If one destroys the eye of a workingman or breaks the bone of a workingman, he shall pay 1 mana of silver. § 199. If one destroys the eye of a man’s slave or breaks the bone of a man’s slave, he shall pay half his value. § 200. If a man knocks out the tooth of a man of his own rank, they shall knock his tooth out. § 201. If one knocks out the tooth of a workingman, he shall pay ? of a mana of silver. § 202. If a man shall strike the private-parts of a man who is of higher rank than he, he shall receive sixty blows with an ox-hide scourge in the assembly. § 203. If a patrician strikes the private-parts of a patrician of his own rank, he shall pay 1 mana of silver. § 204. If a workingman strikes the private-parts of a workingman, he shall pay 10 shekels of silver. § 205. If the slave of a patrician strikes the private-parts of the son of a patrician, they shall cut off his ear. § 207. If from the stroke he dies, he shall swear [as above], and if it was a patrician, he shall pay ½ mana of silver. § 208. If it was a workingman, he shall pay ? of a mana of silver. § 209. If a man strikes a man’s daughter and causes a miscarriage, he shall pay 10 shekels of silver for her miscarriage. § 210. If that woman dies, they shall put his daughter to death. § 211. If through a stroke one causes a miscarriage of the daughter of a workingman, he shall pay 5 shekels of silver. § 212. If that woman dies, he shall pay ½ mana of silver. § 213. If one strikes the slave-girl of a man and causes a miscarriage, he shall pay 2 shekels of silver. § 214. If that slave-girl dies, he shall pay ? of a mana of silver. These laws are strikingly parallel to Exod. 21:18-27, to which Exod. 21:12-14 should be prefixed. The Babylonian code, like the Hebrew, imposes the death penalty for wilful murder. Both codes provide that one who is an accidental homicide shall escape the penalty, but they do it in different ways. Hammurapi provides that the killer may take an oath that he did it without intent to kill. Exod. 21:13, 14 provides that the homicide may find sanctuary at the altar of God. In place of this Deut. 19:4, ff., provides that he may flee to a city of refuge. If a man injures another in a fight, the Bible (Exod. 21:18, 19) provides that he shall pay for the lost time and, as does Hammurapi, the cost of healing the injured man. Exod. 21:22 provides, as does Hammurapi, for the payment of a fine for causing a woman to miscarry, but Exodus does not, like the Babylonian code, fix the amount of the damage; that is left to the judges. In the laws concerning the injury of slaves the two codes differ. Exodus provides (21:20, 21, 26, 27) for cases in which owners injure or kill their own slaves; Hammurapi, for cases in which the injury is done by others. A mere reading of the penalties imposed by the parts of the Babylonian code translated above impresses vividly upon the mind the fact that underlying many of them is the principle so forcibly expressed in Exod. 21:21-25: “life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” The details of application are different, but the principle is the same. Many of the differences were caused by the more complex nature of Babylonian society, in which three classes, patricians, workingmen (or semi-serfs), and slaves, existed. Hebrew law recognizes but two classes—freemen and slaves. Physicians § 215. If a physician operates upon a man for a severe wound with a bronze lancet and saves the man’s life, or if he operates for cataract with a bronze lancet and saves the man’s eye, he shall receive 10 shekels of silver. § 216. If it is a workingman, he shall receive 5 shekels of silver. § 217. If it is a man’s slave, the owner of the slave shall give the physician 2 shekels of silver. § 218. If a physician operates upon a man with a bronze lancet for a severe wound, and the man dies; or operates upon a man with a bronze lancet for cataract and the man’s eye is destroyed, they shall cut off his hand. § 219. If a physician operates with a bronze lancet upon the slave of a workingman and causes his death, he shall restore a slave of equal value. § 220. If he operates for cataract with a bronze lancet and destroys his eye, he shall pay ½ his price. § 221. If a physician sets a broken bone for a man or has cured of sickness inflamed flesh, the patient shall pay 5 shekels of silver to the physician. § 222. If he is a workingman, he shall give 3 shekels of silver. § 223. If he is the slave of a patrician, the owner of the slave shall give 3 shekels of silver to the physician. § 224. If an ox-doctor or an ass-doctor treats an ox or an ass for a severe wound and saves its life, the owner of the ox or the ass shall pay to the physician ? of a shekel of silver as his fee. § 225. If he operates upon an ox or an ass for a severe wound and it dies, he shall give unto the owner of the ox or the ass ¼ of its value. These laws about physicians have no parallel in the Old Testament, the laws of which did not take account of the existence of doctors. They are of interest, since they show the antiquity of physicians in Babylonia, not only for men, but for animals. They also reveal the fact that the practice of medicine in Babylonia was attended by some risks! Herodotus (I, 197) declares that the Babylonians had no physicians, but brought their sick out into the streets and asked of each passer-by whether he had had a like sickness and what he had done for it. Possibly, as among ourselves, there were many who did not wish to incur the expense of a doctor, and who did as Herodotus reports, but these laws, and the existence of physicians at Nineveh at the time of the later Assyrian kings, make it probable that Herodotus was wrong as to their non-existence at Babylon in his day. Laws of Branding § 226. If a brander without the consent of the owner of a slave cuts a mark on a slave, making him unsalable, they shall cut off the hands of that brander. § 227. If a man deceives a brander and he brands a slave with a mark, making him unsalable, they shall put that man to death and cause him to perish in the gate of his house. The brander shall swear: “I did not brand him knowingly” and shall go free. Responsibility of House-builders § 228. If a builder builds a house for a man and completes it, he shall give him as his wages 2 shekels of silver for each Shar of house. § 229. If a builder builds a house for a man and does not make its work strong and the house which he made falls and causes the death of the owner of the house, that builder shall be put to death. § 230. If it causes the death of the son of the owner, the son of that builder shall be put to death. § 231. If it causes the death of a slave of the owner of the house, a slave like the slave he shall give to the owner of the house. § 232. If it destroys property, he shall restore whatever was destroyed, and because he did not build the house strong and it fell, he shall rebuild the house that fell from his own property. § 233. If a builder builds a house for a man and does not make his work strong and a wall falls, that builder shall strengthen that wall at his own expense. These laws have no parallel in the Bible. Among the agricultural population of Palestine builders were not a separate class. The penalties inflicted by the Babylonian code were severe, and yet, if modern legislators would put upon the house-builders of our time a similar responsibility for good work, fewer lives would be sacrificed by falling buildings. Responsibility of Boatmen § 234. If a boatman builds a boat of 60 Gur for a man, he shall give him 2 shekels of silver as his wages. § 235. If a boatman builds a boat for a man and does not make his work sound and in that year the boat is sent on a voyage and meets with disaster, that boatman shall repair that boat and from his own goods shall make it strong and shall give the boat in sound condition to the owner of the boat. § 236. If a man gives his boat to a boatman for hire and the boatman is careless and sinks or wrecks the boat, the boatman shall restore a boat to the owner of the boat. § 237. If a man hires a boatman and a boat and loads it with grain, wool, oil, dates, or any other kind of freight, and that boatman is careless and sinks the boat or destroys its freight, the boatman shall replace the boat and whatever there was in it which he destroyed. § 238. If a boatman sinks a man’s boat and re-floats it, he shall give money for ½ its value. § 239. If a man hires a boatman, he shall give him 6 Gur of grain a year. The Hebrews were not a maritime people, and had no such laws as these or the following. The Collision of Ships § 240. If a boat that is floating downstream strikes a boat that is being towed and sinks it, the owner of the boat that was sunk shall declare in the presence of a god everything that was in that boat and [the owner] of the boat floating downstream, which sunk the boat that was being towed, shall replace the boat and whatever was lost. There is, naturally, nothing similar to this in the Old Testament. Laws Concerning Cattle § 241. If a man levies a distraint upon an ox as security for debt, he shall pay ? of a mana of silver. § 242. If a man hires for a year, the wages of a working ox is 4 Gur of grain. § 243. The hire of a milch cow, 3 Gur of grain for a year he shall give. § 244. If a man hires an ox or an ass and a lion kills it in the field, the loss falls on the owner. § 245. If a man hires an ox and causes its death through neglect or blows, he shall restore to the owner an ox of equal value. § 246. If a man hires an ox and crushes its foot or cuts the cord of its neck, he shall restore to the owner an ox of like value. § 247. If a man hires an ox and destroys its eye, he shall pay to the owner of the ox money to ½ its value. § 248. If a man hires an ox and breaks off its horn, or cuts off its tail or injures the flesh which holds the ring, money to ¼ of its value he shall pay. § 249. If a man hires an ox and a god strikes it and it dies, the man who hires the ox shall take an oath in the presence of a god and shall go free. § 250. If an ox when passing along the street gores a man and causes his death, there is no penalty in that case. § 251. If the ox of a man has the habit of goring and they have informed him of his fault and his horns he has not protected nor kept his ox in, and that ox gores a man and causes his death, the owner of the ox shall pay ½ mana of money. § 252. If it is the slave of a man, he shall pay ? of a mana of money. § 253. If a man hires a man and puts him over his field and furnishes him with seed-grain and intrusts him with oxen and contracts with him to cultivate the field, if that man steals the seed-grain or the crop and it is found in his possession, they shall cut off his hands. § 254. If he takes the seed-grain, but enfeebles the cattle, from the grain which he has cultivated he shall make restoration. § 255. If he shall let the cattle to a man for hire, or steal the seed-grain so that there is no crop, they shall prosecute that man, and he shall pay 60 Gur of grain for each Gan. § 256. If he is not able to meet his obligation, they shall tear him in pieces in that field by means of the oxen. The Biblical legislation corresponding to this is found in Exod. 21:28-35, but it covers only a portion of the cases of which the Babylonian law treats. It provides that, if an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned. If the ox was wont to gore and the owner had not kept it in, but it had been permitted to kill a man or a woman, the owner as well as the ox should be stoned. At the discretion of the tribunal a fine or ransom might be laid on It thus appears that the exigencies of Hebrew agricultural life were different from those of Babylonia, and were naturally met in different ways. Wages of Laborers § 257. If a man hires a field-laborer, he shall pay him 8 Gur of grain per year. § 258. If a man hires a herdsman, he shall pay him 6 Gur of grain per year. Hebrew law did not regulate wages. On Stealing Farming-tools § 259. If a man steals a watering-machine from a field, he shall pay to the owner of the watering-machine 5 shekels of silver. § 260. If a man steals a watering-bucket or a plow, he shall pay 3 shekels of silver. As the Hebrews did not systematically irrigate their land, the Old Testament contains no similar laws. Laws Concerning Shepherds § 261. If a man hires a herdsman to tend cattle or sheep, he shall pay him 8 Gur of grain per year. § 262. If a man, oxen, or sheep .............. (The rest is broken away.) § 263. If he loses an ox or a sheep that is intrusted to him, he shall restore ox for ox and sheep for sheep. § 264. If a herdsman who has had cattle or sheep intrusted to him receives his full pay and is satisfied, and he causes the cattle or the sheep to diminish in number or lessens the birth-rate, he shall give increase and produce according to his contracts. § 265. If a shepherd to whom cattle or sheep have been given to tend is dishonest and alters the price or sells them, they shall prosecute him, and he shall restore to their owner 10 times the oxen or sheep which he stole. § 266. If in a fold there is a pestilence of a god, or a lion has slain, the shepherd shall before a god declare himself innocent, and the owner of the fold shall bear the loss of the fold. § 267. If the shepherd is careless and causes a loss in the fold, the shepherd shall make good in cattle or sheep the loss which he caused in the fold and shall give them to the owner. The same general principles of the limits of responsibility underlay the two codes in these cases, though they differ in details. In Israel the shepherding of the flocks and herds of other people was not, as in Babylonia, a distinct occupation. On Wages of Animals and Men § 268. If a man hires an ox for threshing, 20 Qa of grain is its hire. § 269. If he hires an ass for threshing, 10 Qa of grain is its hire. § 270. If he hires a kid for threshing, 1 Qa of grain is its hire. § 271. If he hires cattle, a wagon and a driver, he shall pay 180 Qa of grain per day. § 272. If a man hires a wagon only, he shall pay 40 Qa of grain per day. § 273. If a man hires a field-laborer from the beginning of the year until the fifth month, he shall pay him 6 She of silver per day; from the sixth month to the end of the year, 5 She of silver per day he shall pay. § 274. If a man hires an artisan, he shall give per day as the wages of a ..... 5 She; as the wages of a brick-maker, 5 She of money; as the wages of a tailor, 5 She of silver; as the wages of a stone-cutter, ...... She of silver; ............ She of silver; ............ She of silver; ............ of a carpenter, 4 She of silver; as the wages of a ...... 4 She of silver; as the wages of a ...... She of silver; the wages of a builder, ...... She of silver. § 275. If a man hires a boat (?) to go upstream (?), its hire is 3 She of silver per day. § 276. If he hires a boat to float downstream, he shall pay as its hire 2½ She of silver per day. § 277. If a man hires a boat of 60 Gur burden, he shall pay ? of a shekel of money per day. There are no parallels to these laws in the Bible, as the Old Testament does not attempt to regulate prices. When one considers the customs of trade all over the Orient, and the time fruitlessly consumed in making bargains, one does not wonder that the practical sovereign of a great commercial people, such as the Babylonians were, should regulate prices by law. As a rule, to this day, a purchaser begins by offering only a fraction of what he is willing to give, and the seller by asking at least twice as much as he is willing When the Sales of Slaves are Void § 278. If a man buys a male or a female slave and before a month is past he has an attack of rheumatism (?), he shall return to the seller, and the purchaser shall receive back the money that was paid. § 279. If a man buys a male or a female slave, and another has a legal claim upon him, the seller shall be responsible for that claim. § 280. If a man, while in a foreign country, purchases a male or a female slave of a man, and, when he returns home, the former owner of the male or the female slave recognizes his slave, if that male or female slave is a native of the land, he shall give it its freedom without recompense. § 281. If they are natives of another country, the purchaser shall declare in the presence of a god the price that he paid, and the former owner of the male or female slave shall pay the price to the merchant, and shall receive back his slave. No laws similar to these are found in the Old Testament. The Penalty for Renouncing a Master § 282. If a slave shall say to his owner: “Thou art not my owner,” they shall make him submit as his slave, and shall cut off his ear. This penalty reminds one of the boring of a slave’s ear (Exod. 21:6; Deut. 15:17) in token of perpetual slavery. 2. The Mosaic Code not Borrowed from the Babylonian; Different Underlying Conceptions. A comparison of the code of Hammurapi as a whole with the Pentateuchal laws as a whole, while it reveals certain similarities, convinces the student that the laws of the Old Testament are in no essential way dependent upon the Babylonian laws. Such resemblances as there are arose, it seems clear, from a similarity of antecedents and of general intellectual outlook; the striking differences show that there was no direct borrowing. The primitive Semitic custom of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth (Exod. 21:24; Lev. 24:20; Deut. 19:21) is made the basis of many penalties in the Babylonian code. (See §§ 196, 197, 200, 229, 230, etc.) The principle underlying it is found also in many other sections. These similarities only show that Babylonia had a large Semitic element in its population. Again, Hammurapi pictured himself at the top of the pillar on which these laws are written as receiving them from the sun-god (Fig. 292). The Bible tells us that Moses received the This difference appears also in the contents of the two codes. The Pentateuch contains many ritual regulations and purely religious laws, while the code of Hammurapi is purely civil. As has been already pointed out, the code of Hammurapi is adapted to the land of the rivers, and to a highly civilized commercial people, while the Biblical laws are intended for a dry land like Palestine, and for an agricultural community that was at a far less advanced stage of commercial and social development. Religion is, however, not a matter of social advancement only. In all that pertains to religious insight the Pentateuch is far in advance of Hammurapi’s laws. |
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