Hammurabi was the sixth king of the Babylonian dynasty and during his rule, which was estimated from 1792 to 1750 BC, he reunited, strengthened, and expanded the dynasty. Moses lived approximately three centuries later and died at the age of 120. He was chosen by God to lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and into Canaan, the Promised Land. Justinian, a successful and powerful Roman emperor, reigned from 527 to 565 AD. So what in the world do these three extremely different people have in common? The answer is actually simple: each recorded a comprehensive system of laws unique to his time period. Hammurabi claimed that his code was revealed to him by the Babylonian god of justice, Shamash. Moses received the Mosaic Law on Mt. Sinai directly from Yahweh, the God of the Israelites. Justinian Law, recorded in four separate books, consisted of the compilation of many previously written laws along with several new decrees of Justinian's own creation. A comparison of Mosaic Law, Hammurabi's Code, and Justinian Law reveals some striking similarities and also exposes some stark contrasts. Beyond this essay are additional theological implications.

Respect for Parents
The family was the basic unit of daily life, and accordingly, Hammurabi, Moses, and Justinian all provided laws that governed family affairs. First of all, the father of the family was considered the head leader and primary decision maker. Laws required children to show a deep respect for parents. In Mosaic Law, if one cursed his father or mother or acted stubbornly and rebelliously, he would be killed.¹ Somewhat similarly, Hammurabi's code required that a son who struck his father have his hands cut off.² However, some grace was also offered when Hammurabi stated that if a judge found a son guilty of a crime for which he deserved to be expelled from his father's house, the father was compelled to forgive the offense the first time. Only if the son repeated the misdeed would his rights to remain in his father's household be terminated.³ Justinian's law, unlike Hammurabi's code and Mosaic Law, did not list the penalty of any specific demonstrations of disrespect. However, the respect and authority a father held was portrayed in the fact that a father's children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren remained under his authority till the day of his death.⁴

Marriage
Another vital component of family structure was marriage. Moses, Hammurabi, and Justinian recorded laws concerning the issues of marriage, divorce, and infidelity. Justinian clearly defined the term marriage when he said, "Marriage, or matrimony, is a binding together of a man and a woman to live in an indivisible union."⁵ Hammurabi, on the other hand, permitted a man to send away his wife with her children as long as he provided her with a certain fraction of his money and property on which to live and raise her children.⁶ Mosaic Law, however, allowed for divorce only when a spouse was proven unfaithful or indecent.⁷ If a man and woman were caught in adultery, Hammurabi and Moses decreed that both man and woman be put to death.⁸ Each set of laws also prohibited a man from having more than one wife at a time. In addition, Justinian and Biblical law required parental consent for any marriage.

These three different men held very similar views of who one could not marry. For example, Hammurabi expressly forbade intercourse between a father and daughter, son and mother, or father and daughter-in-law.⁹ The penalty imposed for breaking these laws was always severe and was usually death. Moses and Justinian affirmed these laws, but also extended the prohibition to uncles and nieces, nephews and aunts, brothers and sisters, and any other close relatives.¹⁰ Justinian did not list the penalties inflicted on those who disobeyed these laws, but under Mosaic Law, breaking one of these rules meant exile or death.¹¹ Mosaic Law also clearly stated that relations between an animal and a human¹² or two persons of the same gender¹³ were wicked, and the penalty, again, was death.

Slavery
Slavery was another important issue during the days these laws were written. Mosaic Law allowed the Israelites to own slaves provided that these slaves were taken from the surrounding countries and were not fellow Hebrews.¹⁴ Because slaves were considered a person's property, the owner possessed the authority to beat the slave as long as, after a day or two, the slave could get back up. If they slave died as a result of the beating, the owner was punished.¹⁵ Justinian, too, permitted the punishment of slaves. However, he also prohibited "unrestrained violence toward slaves,"¹⁶ except when permission had been granted by the court for a particular reason. Hammurabi's laws addressed different topics related to slavery. If a slave married the daughter of a free man, the children born to the couple were free.¹⁷ And if a man sold himself and his family to compensate for a debt, they were to labor for their debt three years, but in the forth year the family was to be set free.¹⁸ Similarly, Mosaic Law stated that if an Israelite worked as a servant to pay off a debt, he would serve six years and in the seventh year be released.¹⁹

Theft
Theft was also not treated lightly in these law codes. In Mosaic Law, whatever a thief stole he had to make restitution for. For example, if a person stole an ox or sheep and killed it, he would have to restore to the owner five heads of cattle or four sheep for each respective crime. If, however, the stolen animal was found alive among the thief's property, the thief was required to pay back the owner two of the stolen animal.²⁰ According to Hammurabi's laws, the animal stolen must be repaid thirty or ten times over, depending upon the social status of the person who was robbed. If a man lacked the resources to pay, he was killed. ²¹ In addition, law 22 of Hammurabi's Code stated, "If any one is committing a robbery and is caught, then he shall be put to death."²² Hammurabi also considered a kidnapper as a thief, and, when captured, the criminal was put to death.²³ Justinian Law closely resembled Mosaic Law in this instance. Justinian decreed that as the penalty imposed upon a manifest thief (a thief caught in the act of robbery), the criminal would pay back four times the amount stolen. However, if the thief was not caught in the act of robbery, he would only have to repay twice the value of the thing stolen.²⁴ In addition, Justinian considered anyone who knowingly assisted the thief with his endeavor also a thief.²⁵

Physical Injury
Another form of grievance dealt with in these laws was physical injury. When no serious injury was incurred, Mosaic Law commanded that the guilty man be fined the sum set by a judge.²⁶ This money was then given to the wronged man to compensate for his loss. However, if the maltreatment was more grave, Mosaic Law demanded in Exodus 21:23-25 that, " But if there is a serious injury you are to take life for life, eye for eye, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise."²⁷ This decree was very similar to the statements in Hammurabi's laws, numbers 196, 197, and 200, which declared, "If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out. If he break another man's bone, his bone shall be broken. If a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out."²⁸ However, this decree was not quite as similar to Mosaic Law as it originally appeared, for this only applied to men of equal status. If such a crime was committed against a freed man or a slave, the perpetrator only paid a set sum of money.²⁹ Interestingly, if a man struck a pregnant woman and she died, the man's daughter was put to death.³⁰ This starkly contrasted Biblical law, in which God decreed that, "Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin."³¹ Justinian indicated in his books of laws that although the penalty for physical injuries used to be an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, that practice was no longer used. Instead, the injurer was forced to pay a sum, the amount of which was originally suggested by the injured and then approved or modified by a judge. ³² If anyone was convicted of murder under any of these codes, they too, were killed. However, in Mosaic Law, if the murder was unintentional, the murderer had to flee to one of the designated cities of refuge. Once inside one of those cities, he could not be injured by any avenger.³³ Similarly, Justinian Law proclaimed that any one who killed someone else accidentally was guilt free.³⁴

While so far Hammurabi's Code, Mosaic Law, and Justinian Law may seem to be very alike, in reality each was not quite so similar. Each possessed its own peculiarities that made it even more unique. For example, the Mosaic Law was unique in its great concern and many regulations regarding the worship of the Israelite God, Yahweh. It decreed several mandatory feasts and many different types of sacrifices.³⁵ This kind of attention to spiritual matters was overlooked in both Justinian's and Hammurabi's code. The farthest Hammurabi went was to say that anyone who stole from the gods would be put to death,³⁶ Justinian hardly mentioned anything more than the fact that religious or sacred property could not be sold. ³⁷ This uniqueness in the sets of laws, however, was not necessarily always a good thing. Take, for example, the harsh second law of Hammurabi's Code which read, "If any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to the river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river prove that the accused is not guilty, and he escape unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser."³⁸ Rule 218 was another example of a law not paralleled in either Justinian or Mosaic Law, "If any one who has not lost his goods state that they have been lost, and make false claims: if he claim his goods and amount of injury before God, even though he has not lost them, he shall be fully compensated for all his loss claimed."³⁹

Of these three codes, Hammurabi's proved the strictest and Justinian's proved the most lenient. Perhaps the main difference in Hammurabi's Code when compared to Justinian and Mosaic Law, however, was that the latter two specified between having the intentionally doing something and doing something accidentally. This, too, emphasized the free choice humans have regarding sin. Hammurabi, on the other hand, made no such distinction. He used economics to determine a person's worth rather than recognizing their intrinsic value because they were created in the image of God.⁴⁰ In summary, each of these law codes were written at a different time and place which caused dissimilarity. However, the similarities are significant enough to ask if there might be a common theological base for Hammurabi, Mosaic and Justinian Laws.

The Holy Bible New International Version, Leviticus 20:9, Deuteronomy 21:18-21

²Hammurabi, The Code of Hammurabi, Law #195, Translated by L.W. King (1910), Edited by Richard Hooker, Available at

³The Code of Hammurabi, Laws #168-169

⁴Justinian, The Institutes, From: Oliver J. Thatcher, ed., The Library of Original Sources (Milwaukee: University Research Extension Co., 1907), Vol. III: The Roman World, pp. 100-166. Available at:

⁵Justinian, The Institutes, Book I, part IX, #1

⁶The Code of Hammurabi, Laws #137-138

⁷ The Holy Bible New International Version, Deuteronomy 24:1, Malachi 2:16

⁸The Code of Hammurabi, Law #129, & The Holy Bible Deuteronomy 22:22

⁹The Code of Hammurabi, Laws #154-158

¹⁰The Holy Bible New International Version, Leviticus 18:6-20 & Justinian, The Institutes, Book I, part 10, #1-11

¹¹The Holy Bible New International Version, Leviticus 18:29

¹²The Holy Bible New International Version, Leviticus 18:23

¹³The Holy Bible New International Version, Leviticus 18:22

¹⁴The Holy Bible New International Version, Leviticus 25:44-46

¹⁵The Holy Bible New International Version, Exodus 21:20-21

¹⁶Justinian, The Institutes, Book I, part VIII, #2

¹⁷The Code of Hammurabi, Laws #175-176

¹⁸The Code of Hammurabi, Law #17

¹⁹The Holy Bible New International Version, Exodus 21:2

²⁰The Holy Bible New International Version, Exodus 22:1,4

²¹The Code of Hammurabi, Law #8

²²The Code of Hammurabi, Law #22

²³The Code of Hammurabi, Law #14

²⁴Justinian, The Institutes, Book IV, part 1, #5

²⁵Justinian, The Institutes, Book IV, part 1, #11

²⁶The Holy Bible New International Version, Exodus 21:22

²⁷The Holy Bible New International Version, Exodus 21:23

²⁸The Code of Hammurabi, Laws #196-97, 200

²⁹The Code of Hammurabi, Laws #198-199, 201

³⁰The Code of Hammurabi, Law #210

³¹The Holy Bible New International Version, Deuteronomy 24:16

³²Justinian, The Institutes, Book IV, part IV, #7

³³The Holy Bible New International Version, Deuteronomy 19:2-7

³⁴Justinian, The Institutes, Book IV, part III, #3

³⁵The Holy Bible New International Version, Exodus 23:14-19, Leviticus 1:1-7:38

³⁶The Code of Hammurabi, Law #6

³⁷Justinian, The Institutes, Book II, part 1, #7

³⁸The Code of Hammurabi, Law #2

³⁹The Code of Hammurabi, Law #126

⁴⁰Gil Student, "Parshat Yitro," 30 January, 2002, , (16 October, 2004).

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