Exodus 21:1

Exodus 21:1 E. The Judgments. This is best taken as the heading of a fresh collection, The Judgments (p. 184), consisting of case-law, mainly about property, and containing some striking parallels with the Code of Hammurabî (see p. 51, HDB, vol. 5, pp. 584- 612, and Johns-' Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts, and Letters, pp. 44- 68). The Bab. code was much longer, containing 248 laws, and is represented as given by the seated sun-god Shamash to the king standing before him. The Code deals only with civil and criminal laws, not with morals and religion, and the chief parallels are with the Judgments (see Driver, CB, 420ff.). The Judgments do not borrow from the Code, but they are often too like it to be independent (e.g. in the case of the vicious ox, Exodus 21:28 f.). Either both rest on ancient Semitic custom, or the Hebrew law is based on a survival in Canaan of Bab. civilisation from the time of the Tell el-Amarna letters. Parallels are found in Exodus 21:2; Exodus 21:11; Exodus 21:15; Exodus 21:18 f., Exodus 21:22; Exodus 21:23; Exodus 21:26; Exodus 21:28; Exodus 21:29; Exodus 22:1 (two cases), Exodus 22:5; Exodus 22:7; Exodus 22:9 f., Exodus 22:12; Exodus 22:14 f., Exodus 22:26.