These lofty hopes are peculiar to Israel. But Israel's conception of Sheol shows very striking resemblances with the Babylonian conception. The descriptions found in Job, in the Psalms, in Isaiah, in Ezekiel and elsewhere, are hardly to be distinguished from those found in Babylonian literature. The opening lines of Ishtar's descent into Sheol read:
To the land from which there is no return, the home of darkness,
Ishtar, the daughter of Sin, turned her mind,
Yea, the daughter of Sin set her mind to go;
To the house of gloom, the dwelling of Irkalla,
To the house from which those who enter depart not,
The road from whose path there is no return;
To the house where they who enter are deprived of light;
A place where dust is their nourishment, clay their food;
The light they behold not, in thick darkness they dwell;
They are clad like bats in a garb of wings;
On door and bolt the dust is laid.
Compare with this Job 10. 21, 22:
Before I go, whence I shall not return,
To the land of darkness, yea deepest darkness,
The land dark as midnight,
Of deepest darkness without any order,
And where the light is as midnight;
or Job 7. 9, 10:
He that goeth down to Sheol shall come up no more,
He shall return no more to his house,
Neither shall his place know him any more.
Other similarities may be noted: the Hebrew Sheol, like the Babylonian, was deep down in the earth; it is pictured as a cavern; silence reigns supreme, etc. There is but one explanation for these similarities: When the ancestors of the Hebrews left their homes in the Euphrates valley they carried with them the traditions, beliefs, and customs current in that district. Under new surroundings, and especially under the influence of their higher religion, new features were added and old conceptions were transformed. But these changes were not able to obscure entirely the character impressed upon the older beliefs by contact with Babylon.
Striking similarities are found also between the legal systems of Babylonia and Israel. In the light of recent discoveries the study of ancient law begins to-day, not with the legal systems of Rome, or of Greece, or of Israel, but with the laws of early Babylonia. Of the beginning of the Babylonian legal system we know nothing except a few popular traditions, which trace it back to some deity. It is clear, however, that long centuries before the time of Moses or Minos or Romulus the people living in the lower Euphrates-Tigris valley developed legal codes of a high and complex order. In the legal phrase books of the later scribes there have been preserved seven so-called Sumerian family laws, written in the language of the people occupying the southern part of the Euphrates-Tigris valley before it came under the sway of the Semites. These laws, in theme and literary form resembling later Babylonian and early Hebrew laws, were probably in existence in the fourth millennium B.C.; some of them may go even farther back.
By far the most important Babylonian legal code now known is the so-called Code of Hammurabi.[[25]] Hammurabi was known to Assyriologists long before the finding of his legal code. He reigned in Babylon about B.C. 2000, was the sixth king of the first Babylonian dynasty, and the first permanently to unite the numerous small city states under one ruler. He may, therefore, be called the founder of the Babylonian empire. From his numerous letters and inscriptions, as also from other documents coming from the same period, he was known as a great conqueror and statesman, interested in the highest welfare of his people, and persistently laboring for the improvement of their conditions. The Bible student has a special interest in Hammurabi, however, because in all probability he is no other than the Amraphel of Gen. 14. 1.
The monument on which the code is engraved was found during the winter 1901-1902 by a French excavator in the acropolis of Susa, the scene of the book of Esther. It is a block of black diorite, about eight feet in height. When found it was in three pieces, which, however, were easily joined. On the obverse is a bas relief representing the king as receiving the ruler's staff and ring from the sun-god Shamash, "the judge of heaven and earth." Then follow on the obverse sixteen columns of writing, containing 1,114 lines. There were five more columns on this side, but they were erased and the stone repolished, probably by the Elamite conqueror who carried the monument to Susa. On the reverse are twenty-eight columns with more than 2,500 lines of inscription. The English Assyriologist, C. H. W. Johns, estimates that originally the inscription contained forty-nine columns, 4,000 lines, and about 8,000 words. About 800 lines are taken up by the prologue and epilogue, setting forth the king's titles, his glory, the extent of his rule, his care for his subjects, and devotion to his gods. The inscription opens with a statement of his call by the gods to be the ruler of Babylon: "When the lofty Anu, king of the Anunaki, and Bel, lord of heaven and earth, he who determines the destiny of the land, committed the rule of all mankind to Marduk, the chief son of Ea; when they made him great among the Igigi; when they pronounced the lofty name of Babylon, when they made it famous among the quarters of the world, and in its midst established an everlasting kingdom, whose foundations were firm as heaven and earth—at that time, Ami and Bel called me, Hammurabi, the exalted prince, the worshiper of the gods, to cause justice to prevail in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil, to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak, to go forth like the sun over the blackhead race, to enlighten the land and to further the welfare of the people."