Here the Sumerian text differs from the Semitic. In the former the employer is said to “cause” the slave to suffer these detriments, in the latter he is said to come by them. The verb rendered “lost” is used in that sense in the later Code of Ḥammurabi. What is the exact sense of the verb rendered “has been incapacitated” is not clear. Professor [pg 043] Hommel[60] renders durchbrennen, Delitzsch[61] renders weichen, entweichen, oder zu arbeiten aufhören. But it is clear that the employer is to pay a daily fine for injury done to the slave, or for loss to his owner, caused or connived at by him. The slave's refusal to work could not be made the ground for fining him. If anyone paid for that it would be the owner. The employer pays for his work, but is bound to keep him safe and treat him reasonably well and return him in good condition to his owner. In later times the owner often took the risk of death and flight, but then he probably charged more hire. At any rate it is clear that the owner is not named in this law.
It is not profitable to discuss these mere fragments of a code. The most interesting thing is their existence. We may one day recover the Code in full. These are not retranslations into Sumerian, by learned scribes, of late laws. For exactly these words and phrases occur in the contracts of the First Dynasty of Babylon, before and after the Code of Ḥammurabi, which deals with the same cases, but in different words. In fact, this Sumerian Code is quoted, as the later Code was quoted, in documents which embody the sworn agreement of the parties to observe the section of the Code applying to their case. This is indeed the characteristic of the early contracts: after indicating the particulars of the case, an oath is added to the effect that the parties will abide by the law concerning it. Even where no reference is made to a law, it is because either no law had been promulgated on the point, or because the law was understood too well to need mention. Later this law-abiding spirit was less in evidence and the contract became a private undertaking to carry out mutual engagements. But even then it was assumed that a law existed which would hold the parties to the terms of an engagement voluntarily contracted.
II. The Code Of Ḥammurabi
Witchcraft and the ordeal by water
§ 1. If a man has accused another of laying a nêrtu (death spell?) upon him, but has not proved it, he shall be put to death.
§ 2. If a man has accused another of laying a kišpu (spell) upon him, but has not proved it, the accused shall go to the sacred river, he shall plunge into the sacred river, and if the sacred river shall conquer him, he that accused him shall take possession of his house. If the sacred river shall show his innocence and he is saved, his accuser shall be put to death. He that plunged into the sacred river shall appropriate the house of him that accused him.
False witness in capital suit
§ 3. If a man has borne false witness in a trial, or has not established the statement that he has made, if that case be a capital trial, that man shall be put to death.