Exodus 21b – Personal Responsibility Laws in the Ancient Near East
Today’s sermon looked at Exodus 21:12-32, which covers a number of different topics regarding personal responsibility towards other people. Nearly all of these laws have similar counterparts in other Ancient Near Eastern law codes. We will highlight some of them here. (All Bible translations are in ESV, and all ANE law codes are from Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament [ANET] by Pritchard, 3rd ed.).
HONORING YOUR PARENTS
Exodus 21:15 “Whoever strikes his father or his mother shall be put to death.
Exodus 21:17 “Whoever curses his father or his mother shall be put to death.
Code of Hammurabi 195 If a son has struck his father, they shall cut off his hand.
Hammurabi obviously has a far lesser punishment than the biblical text in the case of striking one’s parent. He legislates that the son’s hand shall be cut off. The biblical text sees this crime as a capital offense.
In addition, the Code of Hammurabi 192-193 deals with adopted children leaving their parents spitefully and the ensuing penalties (pluck out the child’s eyes!). This type of spiteful behavior may be similar to what is meant in Exodus 21:17 by “cursing” a father or mother.
KIDNAPPING
Exodus 21:16 “Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.
Code of Hammurabi 14 If a seignior has stolen the young son of a(nother) seignior, he shall be put to death.
Hammurabi and Exodus agree: the penalty for kidnapping is death. However, when we compare the Hittite Laws on kidnapping, we see there that the penalty was less severe: a monetary fine (Hittite Laws 19-21).
NON-DEADLY INJURY
In Exodus 21:18-19, stipulations are given for a case where two men are fighting and a man is injured, but not killed. The guilty party must pay for the loss of the other man’s time and for his medical expenses.
This is almost exactly the case in Hammurabi 206, where the guilty party must state, “I did not strike him deliberately” (even though they were in a brawl!). He must then pay for the man’s medical expenses. No mention is made of paying for his lost time.
The Laws of Eshnunna stipulate payment for each injury, mentioning specific payments for injury to the nose, eye, tooth, ear, a slap in the face, a severed finger, a body slam causing a broken hand (!), a broken foot, and an accidental hit (Eshnunna 42-47). The Hittite Laws stipulate a monetary payment for the injury, as well as medical expenses.
What is shared between all these laws is that the one who “won” the fight is responsible to pay for the injuries of the other in some way. In no law code is blame put on the one who instigated the fight. It is assumed that it takes two to tango and both pay a price for their role in argument, win or lose.
DEATH OF A SLAVE
Exodus is quite strict about slave laws when compared to other ANE law codes. In 21:20-21, when a slave is struck and killed, the master shall be avenged, which I understand to mean he will pay the price with his life by means of the victim’s nearest relative.
However, in the Code of Hammurabi and in the Hittite Laws, the death of a slave merely means a penalty is paid and life moves on. The way the laws are slanted, if a slave is killed by a third party, it is more a crime against the slave owner than it is the slave.
PREGNANT WOMAN
Exodus 21:22 “When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine.
This law draws the most interest, not only because of the difficulties in translation/interpretation, but because it is actually not uncommon to hear of such regulations in the ANE. Here are a few of the similar law codes and my comments:
Code of Hammurabi 209-210 If a seignior struck a(nother) seignior’s daughter and has caused her to have a miscarriage, he shall pay ten shekels of silver for her fetus. 210) If that woman has died, they shall put his daughter to death.
Hammurabi says that a brawl that causes a miscarriage results in a fine of 10 shekels of silver for the price of the dead fetus. This is not uncommon to see in these law codes. A Sumerian exercise tablet was uncovered that had some law code written on it that stipulated 10 shekels of silver for a man who accidentally caused a miscarriage, and 20 shekels if it was purposeful (Sumerian Law Exercise Tablet 1-2). Clearly these law codes did not see an unborn baby as valuable as Exodus.
But Hammurabi goes further. If the woman along with the child dies, it’s not the man that should be put to death, but the man’s daughter. Quite brutal.
But it gets worse. The next few laws of Hammurabi (211-214) stipulate that if the same thing happens to a woman of a lower class – she survives but loses the baby – it is only a monetary fine that he must pay. So the Code of Hammurabi’s ruling on the subject is dependent on the person’s social class.
The Middle Assyrian laws were similar (Tablet A, 21, 50-53). If a man’s daughter was struck and she miscarried, the penalty is a fine, a flogging (50 times!), and hard labor. If his wife is the one who is struck and miscarries, the penalty is death for the man who struck her. The law even stipulates the same for a harlot. So these laws had a higher view of unborn life than Hammurabi.
What about a woman who causes her own miscarriage? There’s a law for that, too:
Middle Assyrian, Tablet A 53 If a woman has had a miscarriage by her own act, when they have prosecuted her (and) convicted her, they shall impale her on stakes without burying her. If she died in having the miscarriage, they shall impale her on stakes without burying her…
Apparently the Middle Assyrians took the unborn life seriously! If a woman causes her own miscarriage due to some negligent act, she would be impaled and left to rot. If she died along with the child, they would impale her anyway and leave her to rot. This law obviously gives us an idea of what the Assyrians would’ve thought about abortion!
One more pregnant-woman law before we move on:
Hittite Laws 17-18 If anyone causes a free woman to miscarry – if (it is) the 10th month, he shall give 10 shekels of silver, if (it is) the 5th month, he shall give 5 shekels of silver and pledge his estate as security. 18) If anyone causes a slave-woman to miscarry, if (it is) the 10th month, he shall give 5 shekels of silver.
Here we see another penalty-driven law. But what is different is that this law places a different value on the miscarried child, depending on how far into her term the woman was. The further along you are, the more the aggressor would have to pay. Can we suppose, then, that the Hittites had a similar view of life in the womb? The further along it is, the more “human” or more valuable it is?
Also notice that the payout was half as much for a slave woman. I suppose this is why we shouldn’t get our ethics from the Hittites.
LEX TALIONIS – AN EYE FOR AN EYE
Exodus 21:23 But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
Code of Hammurabi 196-197, 200 If a seignior has destroyed the eye of a member of the aristocracy, they shall destroy his eye. (197) If he has broken a(nother) seignior’s bone, they shall break his bone. (200) If a seignior has knocked out a tooth of a seignior of his own rank, they shall knock out his tooth.
Laws of Eshnunna 42: If a man bites the nose of a(nother) man and severs it, he shall pay 1 mina of silver. (For) an eye (he shall pay) 1 mina of silver; (for) a tooth 1/2 mina; (for) an ear 1/2 mina; (for) a slap in the face 10 shekels of silver.
Hammurabi is often credited with pioneering the “eye-for-an-eye” principle. Until that law code, others like Eshnunna typically stipulated a specific payment depending on which part of the body was damaged (see also Ur-Nammu 15-19, which does the same thing).
However, what most scholars fail to point out is that Hammurabi’s famous law code was only good for damage to people who were of equal or greater class than you. If a middle-class citizen broke the foot of an upper-class citizen, his foot would be broken in return. But if a middle-class citizen broke the foot of a lower-class citizen, he only pays a fine in proportion to the injured body part (Code of Hammurabi 198-199).
So Hammurabi was only “eye-for-an-eye” if the injury was done within or above your societal class.
Not so Exodus.
You’ll notice that I don’t address the next section, Exodus 21:26-27 – the release of a slave for damage to the eye, tooth, etc. That’s because there is nothing like it out there. All other law codes – like Hammurabi’s – impose a monetary fine upon the master who physically damages his slave, because after all, in their view, a slave is simply property and nothing more.
But Exodus is starkly different. If even a slave’s tooth fell out due to a master’s angry fist, the slave was free to go (and keep in mind how expendable a tooth was in a pre-toothpaste society!). Exodus views the slave as a person to be treated with as much dignity as anyone else.
A GORING OX
Exodus 21:28 “When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner of the ox shall not be liable. 29 But if the ox has been accustomed to gore in the past, and its owner has been warned but has not kept it in, and it kills a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death. 30 If a ransom is imposed on him, then he shall give for the redemption of his life whatever is imposed on him.
Code of Hammurabi 250-252 If an ox, when it was walking along the street, gored a seignior to death, that case is not subject to claim. (251) If a seignior’s ox was a gorer and his city council made it known to him that it was a gorer, but he did not pad its horns (or) tie up his ox, and that ox gored to death a member of the aristocracy, he shall give one-half mina of silver. (252) If it was a seignior’s slave, he shall give one-third mina of silver.
Laws of Eshnunna 53-55 If an ox gores an(other) ox and causes (its) death, both ox owners shall divide (among themselves) the price of the live ox and also the meat of the dead ox. (54) If an ox is known to gore habitually and the authorities have brought the fact to the knowledge of its owner, but he does not have his ox dehorned, it gores a man and causes (his) death, then the owner of the ox shall pay two-thirds of a mina of silver. (55) If it gores a slave and causes (his) death, he shall pay 15 shekels of silver.
Apparently, a raging ox was a problem back then! Or at least this made for a good “case law” example for people to apply in various situations. Hammurabi and Eshnunna’s law codes were quite similar to that of Exodus. Eshnunna does allow for the dead ox to be eaten, whereas Exodus does not. Hammurabi may even help clear up a minor mystery in the Exodus text: who is supposed to warn the owner (vs 29)? The verb is simply passive – “its owner has been warned.” Hammurabi specifies that it is the city council that has warned the owner (251).
In Hammurabi, the ox is put to death and a fine is paid. How expensive a fine depends on who died – a free man or a slave. Same thing with Eshnunna. Exodus 21:31 specifies that if children are killed, the penalty is still the same, but vs 32 says if a slave is killed, the master must be paid a special fine by the owner of the ox, since the death of a servant means a financial loss for the master. Only in Exodus is death the penalty for the repeat-offending ox owner (though a redemption price is an option).
Overall, comparing the ANE law codes with that of Exodus’s Covenant Code demonstrates the value of life that Exodus placed on human beings, no matter what race, no matter what age, no matter whether they are fully grown adults or living babies in the womb. The law doesn’t change if the injured party is a slave as opposed to a person of a higher class, and if it does change, it changes on behalf of the weaker member of society. Though there are many similarities between these law codes, this value on human life does indeed set the biblical law apart from the neighboring laws.
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