Jeremiah Unterman

Jeremiah Unterman was Adjunct Professor of Bible at Yeshiva University and Director of the Association of Modern Orthodox Day Schools and Yeshiva High Schools in North America before becoming a Resident Scholar at the Herzl Institute.  Dr. Unterman is the author of a new book, Justice for All: How the Jewish Bible Revolutionized Ethics (Jewish Publication Society, 2017). He also wrote a book on Biblical prophecy, From Repentance to Redemption, as well as numerous scholarly articles, and has taught at Dartmouth College, Northwestern University, University of California – Irvine, and other universities. He received a B.A. in Hebraic Studies from Rutgers University, an M.A. in Bible from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a Ph.D. in the Judaica Program of the Near Eastern Studies Department at U.C., Berkeley.

Paper:

Sinai Law and the Hammurabi Code- A Comparative Study

Abstract:

Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) law collections are almost solely concerned with civil or criminal law. The main collections are the Laws of Ur-nammu – 2100 BCE, the Laws of Lipit-Ishtar – 1930 BCE, the Laws of Eshnunna - 1770 BCE, the Laws of Hammurabi – 1750 BCE, the Hittite Laws – 1650-1180 BCE, and the Middle Assyrian Laws – 1075 BCE (no Egyptian law collection has been found).

Although the ANE law collections cited here may have been primarily royal compilations, the authorities responsible for the administration of civil law were not only the kings, but local or provincial courts (tens of thousands of cuneiform tablets document legal agreements and transactions, court cases and lawsuits). It is noteworthy that religious and ritual regulations do not appear in these legal collections, but were gathered in priestly instruction guides, while morality in the form of general admonitions was found in wisdom literature produced by sages.

This is not to say that the ANE law collections were without religious or moral connection. The law collections of Ur-nammu, Lipit-Ishtar, and Hammurabi all have prologues which indicate that these legal inscriptions are evidence that the king fulfilled the responsibility given him by the gods to establish justice in the land. The collections of Lipit-Ishtar and Hammurabi also contain epilogues which call upon different deities to punish anybody who erases or defaces these inscriptions.

The most complete of these collections is that of Hammurabi. According to the prologue and epilogue of that collection:

• The king is the author of this stela (written in the first person).
• He, and no other (!), was chosen by the gods to ensure justice and well-being in society, particularly for the oppressed and disadvantaged, which he achieved.
• The law is the king’s law - “my pronouncements” (along with “my verdicts” and “my judgments”) are referred to in the epilogue no less than 11 times.
• The law is retrospective and even hidden away in the temple. Only if someone thinks they have been wronged do they seek out the law - at which point, they need a literate priest to read it to them. But if the law is not promulgated to the public, how does the wronged individual even know of its existence? No evidence has turned up for any cultural norm that people would go to temples to consult with priests about civil law collections that might be kept there. Further, none of the legal records found on the tens of thousands of cuneiform tablets mentioned above refers to any of the law collections! Thus, the primary purpose of the prologue, laws, and epilogue is the self-justification of Hammurabi before his deities that he has faithfully carried out the moral task assigned to him.

The Sinai Law Collection

In contrast to the Mesopotamian law collections, Sinai law has a different framework and raison d’etre:

•  God is the creator of all the laws of the society. As with Divine commands, laws in the Torah are preceded by “God spoke/said.” God is the lawgiver, Moses the law transmitter. No other case exists in the ancient world of a god giving its people its law.
•  Since God gives all the laws of the society, the Torah differs from all ANE collections in that civil and ritual laws are placed next to each other within the same code. Indeed, it is sometimes difficult to tell them apart. So, for example, in the Ten Commandments, Exodus, 20:3-6 are against idolatry, vs. 7 forbids swearing falsely in God’s name (perhaps in a ritual matter, for vs. 13 refers to a false witness in a civil or criminal action which would also have been involved in a false oath), and the Sabbath laws in vss. 8-11 require both sanctifying the Sabbath day and not making anybody else work. Similarly, Exod. 22:19 prohibits sacrificing to another god, while the following verse forbids oppressing a resident alien. Exod. 23:11 requires letting private land lie fallow in the seventh year (seemingly, a ritual), while at the same time letting the poor eat of it. Leviticus 19:2 is an introduction commanding the people to be holy in imitation of God, but most of the following laws emphasize ethical obligations. And so on.
•  Another unique phenomenon which is a consequence of God giving His law to His people is the direct address. All the ANE law collections are written casuistically, that is, as case law, “If/When x occurs, the punishment is y.” That is also the case in much of Torah law (for example, Exodus 21:2 – 23:16). However, some laws are also given by the direct address of God as “I” and the people as “you.” This is not only the case in the Ten Commandments, but also such ethical texts such as Exodus 22:20-26. This exceptional style of legal writing not only reflects the fact that the laws are written as part of the stipulations of the Sinai treaty between God and Israel, but also reflects the intimacy of the caring of God towards His people. So, one finds such elements here as motive clauses intended to stir the people’s conscience and urge them to fulfillment of the laws.
•  Where King Hammurabi was appointed by the gods to establish justice, in the Torah that becomes the responsibility of each individual (as in the Sinai treaty).
•  Whereas Hammurabi’s law is retrospective and hidden, Biblical law is prospective, prescriptive and promulgated to the people proactively (Exodus 21:1) - a requirement concretized in Deuteronomy 31:10-13, which requires a public reading every seventh year before the entire people.
•  The burden of educating the people to the laws is not only placed upon the leadership, but also upon the children’s parents (Deut. 6:6-7).

Why? Why is the law so important to the Bible that every Israelite must be familiar with it? The answer is that, in the Bible, the Sinai treaty and Divine law are inextricably intertwined. Thus, the stipulations of the treaty equal the laws of the people. That means that the blessings and curses of the treaty are tied to obedience or disobedience of the law! In the ANE law collections, punishment is usually only meted out to the guilty individual (and, in some cases, to family members). However, in the Bible, punishment for disobedience (that is, if too many are disobedient) is not only meted out upon the individual(s) responsible, but upon the whole society! Further, like typical civil or criminal law in society, in the ANE no benefits accrue for obedience to laws. Not so in the Bible where, in accord with the treaty’s blessings, obedience to law is rewarded to the entire society! As God is the law-giver, He will also enact the rewards or punishments.

Thus, obedience or disobedience to the law in the Jewish Bible (and later Judaism) becomes the determinant of the people’s destiny. As such, law in the Jewish Bible takes on a much more important role than law in all other societies. As with the Sinaitic treaty, for the first time in the ancient world, the individual is responsible for the fate of the community by his/her behavior. In reality, each individual now has a dual responsibility – as an individual and as a member of the nation. The community whom the Torah addresses is now apprised of the extraordinary importance of each individual member. So, the community must take steps to ensure that its individuals obey the law. Additionally, the community must accept its own responsibility for the welfare of its members. This concern will be reflected in numerous Divine laws that enjoin the community and its individuals to care for the vulnerable elements of society. Consequently, for the first time, the community becomes responsible for the fate of the individual. Thus is born the concept of mutual individual and communal responsibility.Thus, Sinai law becomes the basis for the establishment of a just society. 

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