§ 206. If a man strikes a man in a quarrel and wounds him, he shall swear, "I did not strike with intent," and shall pay for the physician.

§ 207. If from the stroke he dies, he shall swear [as above], and if it was a patrician, he shall pay 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 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 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 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.

These laws have no parallel in the Old Testament. Evidently the simpler organization of Hebrew society made them unnecessary.

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.

for

§ 238. If a boatman sinks a man's boat and re-floats it, he shall give money 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,13 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 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 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 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

the owner. In case the ox gored a slave, the owner of the ox was to pay 30 shekels of silver and the ox was to be stoned. If a man opened a pit and a neighbor's ox or ass fell into it, the digger of the pit must make good the loss to the owner of the animal, and the dead beast became the property of the digger of the pit. If one man's ox killed the ox of another man, the two men were to sell the live ox and divide the price. If it were known that the ox was wont to gore in the past, and its owner had not kept it in, he was to pay ox for ox, and the dead animal should be his.

. 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.