Law Collections from Mesopotamia

3. Law Collections from MesopotamiaMany ancient Middle Eastern cities have yielded documents through the work of archaeologists. At least seven law codes have been found. The earliest one is the Sumerian Code of Ur-Nammu, dating to the twenty-second century B.C.E. Others include the Code of Lipit-Ishtar, the Code of Eshnunna, Middle Assyrian laws, Hittite laws, and Neo-Babylonian laws (see Pritchard 1969: 159-98). Thus, the legal traditions of Israel stand within a well-developed context of legally ordered societies in the ancient Middle East. Israel's law codes have many points of contact with ancient extra-biblical law codes.

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Figure 3.5 Hammurabi Monument The Code of Hammurabi contains 282 laws chiseled onto a pillar of basalt rock. The upper register is a picture of Hammurabi kneeling in prayer before the sun god Shamash, the patron god of justice. The bottom register contains the Code of Hammurabi in cuneiform. This standing stone was a monument to justice and did not first of all function as a reference manual for the use of judges at court, but gave public testimony to the character of Hammurabi as a promoter of righteousness. 18th century B.C.E., Musée du Louvre, Paris -- Gianni Dagli Orti/Corbis

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The most famous collection is the Code of Hammurabi (see Figure 3.5). Hammurabi was a Babylonian ruler from the eighteenth century B.C.E. The code begins with Hammurabi's call

"...to promote the welfare of the people . . . to cause justice to prevail in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil that the strong might not oppress the weak." (Pritchard 1969: 164)

    There are notable similarities between the Code of Hammurabi and certain Israelite legal materials, especially the Book of the Covenant. For instance, as in Israelite law, the Code of Hammurabi contains the law of retribution in kind (lex talionis), which prescribes proportional punishment: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

Code of Hammurabi

If a man has destroyed the eye of another man, they shall destroy his eye. If he has broken another man's bone, they shall break his bone. (196-97)

Book of the Covenant

If any injury occurs, you shall take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, beating for beating. (21:23-25)

    While such physical retaliation may seem brutal, in fact, it was humane in its day. Specifying restitution in kind prevented resort to harsher punishments for such offenses, typically the death penalty. The existence of this code and others like it demonstrate that Israel shared with her neighbors an ideal of justice that would be administered by a righteous king. In Israel, David and Solomon were thought to epitomize this ideal.