§ 12. If the seller has died, the purchaser shall recover from the house of the seller the damages of that case fivefold.
§ 13. If that man has not his witnesses near, the judges shall set an appointed time within six months; and if, within six months, his witnesses he does not produce, that man is a liar; the penalty of that case he shall himself bear.
The Hebrew laws comparable to these are found in Exod. 22:1-4, 9, and Lev. 6:3-5. Exodus directs (v. 1) that, if a man steals an ox or a sheep and kills it or sells it, he shall restore live oxen for an ox and four sheep for a sheep. In case it is not sold he shall restore double (v. 9). No highly organized courts appear in the Biblical codes. The thief was brought before God and his guilt determined by some religious test. The law of Leviticus required a man guilty of theft to restore the lost property, adding to it a fifth more, and to offer a ram in sacrifice. (See Exod. 18:13-26. Cf. 2 Chron. 19:5-7 with 1 Chron. 23:4 and Deut. 16:18-20.)
The Babylonian laws presuppose a much more highly organized social community than the Hebrew.
Against Stealing Children and Slaves
§ 14. If a man steals the son of a man who is a minor, he shall be put to death.
§ 15. If a man causes a male or female slave of a palace, or the male or female slave of a workingman to escape from the city gate, he shall be put to death.
§ 16. If a man harbors in his house either a male or a female slave who has escaped from a palace or from a workingman, and does not bring him out at the summons of the officer, the owner of that house shall be put to death.
§ 17. If a man finds in a field a male or a female slave who has escaped and restores him to his owner, the owner of the slave shall pay him 2 shekels of silver.
§ 18. If that slave will not name his owner, he shall bring him unto the palace and they shall investigate his record and restore him unto his owner.