That there should be, therefore, but few parallels between the Codes of Moses and of Ḫammurabi was to be expected, though naturally likenesses and parallelisms are to be found, the Hebrews being practically of the same stock as the Babylonians, and also, as has been shown, under the influence of the same civilization. It will be noticed, in reading through the code, that not only are there no laws against sorcery, worshipping other than the national god or gods, and prostitution, but there are actually enactments referring to the first and the last, showing that they were recognized. Moral, religious, ceremonial, and philanthropic enactments are, in fact, entirely absent.
3-4. With the enactments concerning false witness, cp. Ex. xx. 16; Deut. v. 20, etc. More especially, however, are the directions in Deut. xix. 16 ff. noteworthy. Here the direction is, to do to the false witness “as he had thought to do to his brother.” In this case, too, the logical penalty would be death, in a matter involving the life of a man.
7 (liability to be regarded as a thief on account of the purchase or receiving of things without witnesses or a contract) is to a certain extent paralleled by Lev. vi. 2 ff., where, however, the penalty for wrongful possession is not death, but the restoration of the object detained, with a fifth part of the value added thereto.
8 (theft of live-stock) is illustrated by Ex. xxii. 1, where it is ordered that the thief restore five oxen for a stolen ox, and four sheep for a stolen sheep. All laws dealing with theft seem to have been more severe among the Babylonians than among the Hebrews, and inability to make the object good, with the penalties attached thereto, was visited with death (6-11, 14, 15, etc.).
14. This enactment is exactly parallel with Ex. xxi. 16: “He that stealeth a man ... shall surely be put to death.”
21 (housebreaking). Ex. xxii. 2-4, justifies the killing of a burglar caught in the act before sunrise, but not otherwise.
57. In the case of unlawful pasturing, it is probable that Ex. xxii. 5 may furnish the key to the obscurities of this Babylonian enactment. According to the Mosaic law, the owner of the cattle had to make the damage good with the best of his field or vineyard. To ensure getting the best, and his due share, the most satisfactory way would be to reap the offender's field, if he had one.
110. The opening (seemingly in the English sense) of a wine-house by a temple-devotee, or her merely entering such a place, was in all probability equivalent to prostituting herself, and if so, this law may be compared with Lev. xxi. 9, in which the daughter of a priest, if she profaned herself (and her father) by playing the whore, was to be put to death by burning.
117. As is shown by the preceding enactments, the person of a man might be seized for debt, but this shows that he might allow his wife, his son, or his daughter to be taken to work it off, and in that case they were to be set free in the fourth year. In Hebrew law (Ex. xxi. 2) an ordinary purchased slave was free after six years' service, but if a man sold his daughter (v. 7), she did not “go out as the men-servants do.”[295]
125. The theft of things on deposit entailed only restitution if the person with whom they were deposited were not in fault. In Ex. xxii. 7-9 the person condemned had to pay or restore double the value of the things stolen.