Of the several law codes surviving from the ancient Middle East, the most famous after the Hebrew Torah is the Code of Hammurabi, sixth king of the Amorite Dynasty of Old Babylon. It is best known from a beautifully engraved diorite stela now in the Louvre Museum which also depicts the king receiving the law from Shamash, the god of justice. This copy was made long after Hammurabi’s time, and it is clear that his was a long-lasting contribution to Mesopotamian civil ization. It encodes many laws which had probably evolved over a long period of time, but is interesting to the general reader because of what it tells us about the attitudes and daily lives of the ancient Babylonians. In the following selection, most of the long prologue praising Hammurabi’s power and wisdom is omitted.

What do these laws tell us about attitudes toward slavery? What indication is there that some Babylonian women engaged in business? Clearly men had more rights than women in this society; but what laws can you identify that seem aimed at protecting certain rights of women? Which laws deviate from the egalitarian standard of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth?” What qualities does this text say a ruler should have to enable him to write new laws?

. . . Anu and Bel called by name me, Hammurabi, the exalted prince, who feared God, to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil-doers; so that the strong should not harm the weak; so that I should rule over the black-headed people like Shamash, and enlighten the land, to further the well-being of mankind. . . .

15: If any one take a male or female slave of the court, or a male or female slave of a freed man, outside the city gates [to escape], he shall be put to death.

16: If any one receive into his house a runaway male or female slave of the court, or of a freedman, and does not bring it out at the public proclamation of the [police], the master of the house shall be put to death.

53: If any one be too lazy to keep his dam in proper condition, and does not so keep it; if then the dam break and all the fields be flooded, then shall he in whose dam the break occurred be sold for money, and the money shall replace the [grain] which he has caused to be ruined.

54: If he be not able to replace the [grain], then he and his possessions shall be divided among the farmers whose corn he has flooded.

108: If a [woman wine-seller] does not accept [grain] according to gross weight in payment of drink, but takes money, and the price of the drink is less than that of the corn, she shall be convicted and thrown into the water. (1)

109: If conspirators meet in the house of a [woman wine-seller], and these conspirators are not captured and delivered to the court, the [wine-seller] shall be put to death.

110: If a “sister of a god”[nun] open a tavern, or enter a tavern to drink, then shall this woman be burned to death.

129: If a man’s wife be surprised [having intercourse] with another man, both shall be tied and thrown into the water, but the husband may pardon his wife and the king his slaves.

130: If a man violate the wife (betrothed or child-wife) of another man, who has never known a man, and still lives in her father’s house, and sleep with her and be surprised [caught], this man shall be put to death, but the wife is blameless.

131: If a man bring a charge against [his] wife, but she is not surprised with another man, she must take an oath and then may return to her house.

132: If the “finger is pointed” at a man’s wife about another man, but she is not caught sleeping with the other man, she shall jump into the river for [the sake of her] husband. (2)

138: If a man wishes to separate from his wife who has borne him no children, he shall give her the amount of her purchase money and the dowry which she brought from her father’s house, and let her go.

141: If a man’s wife, who lives in his house, wishes to leave it, plunges into debt [to go into business], tries to ruin her house, neglects her husband, and is judicially convicted: if her husband offer her release, she may go on her way, and he gives her nothing as a gift of release. If her husband does not wish to release her, and if he take another wife, she shall remain as servant in her husband’s house.

142: If a woman quarrel with her husband, and say: “You are not congenial to me,” the reasons for her prejudice must be presented. If she is guiltless, and there is no fault on her part, but he leaves and neglects her, then no guilt attaches to this woman, she shall take her dowry and go back to her father’s house. (3)

143: If she is not innocent, but leaves her husband, and ruins her house, neglecting her husband, this woman shall be cast into the water.

195: If a son strike his father, his hands shall be [cut] off. (4)

196: If a [noble-]man put out the eye of another [noble-]man, his eye shall be put out. (5)

197: If he break another [noble-]man’s bone, his bone shall be broken.

198: If he put out the eye of a [commoner], or break the bone of a [commoner], he shall pay one [silver] mina.

199: If he put out the eye of a man’s slave, or break the bone of a man’s slave, he shall pay one-half of its value.

200: If a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out.

201: If he knock out the teeth of a [commoner], he shall pay one-third of a [silver] mina.

In future time, through all coming generations, let the king, who may be in the land, observe the words of righteousness which I have written on my monument; let him not alter the law of the land which I have given, the edicts which I have enacted; my monument let him not mar. If such a ruler have wisdom, and be able to keep his land in order, he shall observe the words which I have written in this inscription; the rule, statute, and law of the land which I have given; the decisions which I have made will this inscription show him; let him rule his subjects accordingly, speak justice to them, give right decisions, root out the miscreants and criminals from this land, and grant prosperity to his subjects.

Hammurabi, the king of righteousness, on whom Shamash has conferred right (or law) am I. My words are well considered; my deeds are not equaled; to bring low those that were high; to humble the proud, to expel insolence.

Translated by L. W. King (1915), edited by Paul Brians.

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(1) This refers to a practice known as trial by ordeal which has been commonplace in many cultures, including Medieval Europe. It was believed that the Euphrates River would act as judge of people accused of various crimes. If, when thrown into the river, the accused floated, she was considered innocent; but if she sank, the river had found her guilty. For an interesting instance of a different trial by ordeal in ancient Hebrew law, see Numbers 5:11 31.

(2) I. e. to prove her innocence.

(3) The right of women to initiate divorce proceedings is extremely rare in ancient civilizations.

(4) Cf. Hebrew law, which prescribes the death penalty for such an act (Exodus 21:15) and extends its scope to mothers.

(5) Note how punishments are administered according to the social status of the attacker and the victim. “Equality before the law” is a rare concept in ancient times.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This is an excerpt from Reading About the World, Volume 1, edited by Paul Brians, Mary Gallwey, Douglas Hughes, Azfar Hussain, Richard Law, Michael Myers Michael Neville, Roger Schlesinger, Alice Spitzer, and Susan Swan and published by Harcourt Brace Custom Publishing. The reader was created for use in the World Civilization course at Washington State University, but material on this page may be used for educational purposes by permission of the editor-in-chief:

Paul Brians
Department of English
Washington State University
Pullman 99164-5020

This is just a sample of Reading About the World, Volume 1. Reading About the World is now out of print. You can search for used copies using the following information:Paul Brians, et al. Reading About the World, Vol. 1, 3rd edition, Harcourt Brace College Publishing: ISBN 0-15-567425-0 or Paul Brians, et al. Reading About the World, Vol. 2, 3rd edition, Harcourt Brace College Publishing: ISBN 0-15-512826-4.

Try Chambal:
http://www.chambal.com/csin/9780155674257/ (vol. 1)
http://www.chambal.com/csin/9780155128262/ (vol. 2)

This treatise on government is said to have been written by the prime minister of India’s first great emperor, Chandragupta Maurya. Although often compared to Machiavelli’s Prince because of its sometimes ruthless approach to practical politics, Kautilya’s work is far more varied–and entertaining–than usual accounts of it indicate. He mixes the harsh pragmatism for which he is famed with compassion for the poor, for slaves, and for women. He reveals the imagination of a romancer in imagining all manner of scenarios which can hardly have been commonplace in real life.

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The Institution of Spies

One of the most notorious features of the Arthashastra is its obsession with spying on the king’s subjects. Kautilya sometimes goes to amusingly absurd lengths to imagine various sorts of spies. He even cynically proposes using fake holy men for this purpose.

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A man with shaved head or braided hair and desirous to earn livelihood is a spy under the guise of an ascetic practicing austerities. Such a spy surrounded by a host of disciples with shaved head or braided hair may take his abode in the suburbs of a city, and pretend as a person barely living on a handful of vegetables or meadow grass taken once in the interval of a month or two, but he may take in secret his favorite foodstuffs.

Merchant spies pretending to be his disciples may worship him as one possessed of preternatural powers. His other disciples may widely proclaim that “This ascetic is an accomplished expert of preternatural powers.”

Regarding those persons who, desirous of knowing their future, throng to him, he may, through palmistry, foretell such future events as he can ascertain by the nods and signs of his disciples concerning the works of high-born people of the country–viz. small profits, destruction by fire, fear from robbers, the execution of the seditious, rewards for the good, forecast of foreign affairs, saying, “This will happen to-day, that to-morrow, and that this king will do.” Such assertions of the ascetic his disciples shall corroborate (by adducing facts and figures). (1)

He shall also foretell not only the rewards which persons possessed of foresight, eloquence, and bravery are likely to receive at the hands of the king, but also probable changes in the appointments of ministers.

The king’s minister shall direct his affairs in conformity to the forecast made by the ascetic. He shall appease with offer of wealth and those who have had some well-known cause to be disaffected, and impose punishments in secret on those who are for no reason disaffected or who are plotting against the king.

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Formation of Villages

Far from being single-mindedly aimed at preserving the monarch’s power for its own sake, like Machiavelli’s The Prince, the Arthasastra requires the ruler to benefit and protect his citizens, including the peasants, whom Kautilya correctly believes to the ultimate source of the prosperity of the kingdom. He therefore advocates what is now called “land reform.”

What practical argument does Kautilya offer the king for supporting poor farmers?

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Lands may be confiscated from those who do not cultivate them and given to others; or they may be cultivated by village laborers and traders , lest those owners who do not properly cultivate them might pay less (to the government). If cultivators pay their taxes easily, they may be favorably supplied with grains, cattle, and money.

The king shall bestow on cultivators only such favor and remission as will tend to swell the treasury, and shall avoid such as deplete it. . . .

The king shall provide the orphans, the aged, the infirm, the afflicted, and the helpless with maintenance. He shall also provide subsistence to helpless women when they are carrying and also to the children they give birth to.

Elders among the villagers shall improve the property of bereaved minors till the latter attain their age; so also the property of gods.

When a capable person other than an apostate or mother neglects to maintain his or her child, wife, mother, father, minor brothers, sisters, or widowed girls, he or she shall be punished with a fine of twelve panas.

When, without making provision for the maintenance of his wife and sons, any person embraces asceticism, he shall be punished with the first amercement; (2) likewise any person who converts a woman to asceticism.

Whoever has passed the age of copulation may become an ascetic after distributing the properties of his own acquisition (among his sons), otherwise he will be punished.

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Rules Regarding Slaves and Laborers

Slaves were not as common in ancient India as in other civilizations, partly because the lower castes were forced to take on voluntarily many unsavory tasks that would have been performed by slaves elsewhere. However, they did exist, and Kautilya’s regulations governing them are among the most liberal in history. Note how upper-caste slaves are protected from demeaning labor that was reserved for the lowest castes, and how the chastity of female slaves is protected (even ancient Judaism and Islam explicitly allowed a master to have sex with his slave women). It is unknown how widely observed these idealistic regulations were.

Compare these laws on slavery with those in Hammurabi’s Code and the Hebrew Bible. In what ways did caste affect the way slaves were to be treated?

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Deceiving a slave of his money or depriving him of the privileges he can exercise as an Arya, (3) shall be punished with half the fine (levied for enslaving the life of an Arya).

A man who takes in mortgage a person who runs away, or who dies or who is incapacitated by disease, shall be entitled to receive back [from the mortgagor] the value he paid for the slave.

Employing a slave to carry the dead or to sweep ordure, urine, or the leavings of food; (4) or a female slave to attend on her master while he is bathing naked; or hurting or abusing him or her, or violating (the chastity of) a female slave shall cause the forfeiture of the value paid for him or her. Violation [of the chastity] of nurses, female cooks, or female servants of the class of joint cultivators or of any other description shall at once earn their liberty for them. Violence towards an attendant of high birth shall entitle him to run away. When a master has connection with a nurse or pledged female slave under his power against her will, he shall be punished with the first amercement; for doing the same when she is under the power of another, he shall be punished with the middlemost amercement. (5) When a man commits or helps another to commit rape with a girl or a female slave pledged to him, he shall not only forfeit the purchase-value, but also pay a certain amount of money [sulka] to her and a fine of twice the amount [of sulka to the government].

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Capture of the Enemy by Means of Secret Contrivances

Unlike most political treatises, the Arthasastra makes highly entertaining reading, partly because of the mini-narratives in which Kautilya describes how a king may retain his power or preserve his life after he has been overthrown.

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Contrivances to kill the enemy may be formed in those places of worship and visit, which the enemy, under the influence of faith, frequents on occasions of worshipping gods and of pilgrimage.

A wall or stone, kept by mechanical contrivance, may, by loosening the fastenings, be let to fall on the head of the enemy when he has entered into a temple; stones and weapons may be showered over his head from the topmost story; or a door-panel may be let to fall; or a huge rod kept over a wall or partly attached to a wall may be made to fall over him; or weapons kept inside the body of an idol may be thrown over his head; or the floor of those places where he usually stands, sits, or walks may be besprinkled with poison mixed with cowdung1 or with pure water; or, under the plea of giving him flowers, scented powders, or of causing scented smoke, he may be poisoned; or by removing the fastenings made under a cot or a seat, he may be made to fall into a pit containing pointed spears. . . .

Or having challenged the conqueror at night, he may successfully confront the attack; if he cannot do this, he may run away by a side path; or, disguised as a heretic, he may escape with a small retinue; or he may be carried off by spies as a corpse; or disguised as a woman, he may follow a corpse [as it were, of her husband to the cremation ground]; or on the occasion of feeding the people in honor of gods or of ancestors or in some festival, he may make use of poisoned rice and water, and having conspired with his enemy’s traitors, he may strike the enemy with his concealed army; or, when he is surrounded in his fort, he may lie concealed in a hole bored into the body of an idol after eating sacramental food and setting up an altar; or he may lie in a secret hole in a wall, or in a hole made in the body of an idol in an underground chamber; and when he is forgotten, he may get out of his concealment through a tunnel, and, entering into the palace, slay his enemy while sleeping, or loosening the fastening of a machine he may let it fall on his enemy; or when his enemy is lying in a chamber which is besmeared with poisonous and explosive substances, or which is made of lac, he may set fire to it. Fiery spies, hidden in an underground chamber, or in a tunnel, or inside a secret wall, may slay the enemy when the latter is carelessly amusing himself in a pleasure park or any other place of recreation; or spies under concealment may poison him; or women under concealment may throw a snake, or poison, or fire or poisonous smoke over his person when he is asleep in a confined place; or spies, having access to the enemy’s harem, may, when opportunities occur, do to the enemy whatever is found possible on the occasion, and then get out unknown.

Translated by R. Shamasastry (1915)

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(1) Of course these prophets, being in the employ of the King, have reason to know what he intends to do.

(2) A small fine, between 12 and 96 panas.

(3) Aryan, an upper-caste person, a Brahmin.

(4) These are defiling tasks reserved for the so-called “untouchable” castes, who are considered beneath even slaves.

(5) Between 200 and 500 panas.

 

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This is an excerpt from Reading About the World, Volume 1, edited by Paul Brians, Mary Gallwey, Douglas Hughes, Azfar Hussain, Richard Law, Michael Myers Michael Neville, Roger Schlesinger, Alice Spitzer, and Susan Swan and published by Harcourt Brace Custom Books. This is an excerpt from Reading About the World, Volume 1, edited by Paul Brians, Mary Gallwey, Douglas Hughes, Azfar Hussain, Richard Law, Michael Myers Michael Neville, Roger Schlesinger, Alice Spitzer, and Susan Swan and published by Harcourt Brace Custom Publishing.  The reader was created for use in the World Civilization course at Washington State University, but material on this page may be used for educational purposes by permission of the editor-in-chief:

Paul Brians
Department of English
Washington State University
Pullman 99164-5020

Reading About the World is now out of print. You can search for used copies using the following information:Paul Brians, et al. Reading About the World, Vol. 1, 3rd edition, Harcourt Brace College Publishing: ISBN 0-15-567425-0 or Paul Brians, et al. Reading About the World, Vol. 2, 3rd edition, Harcourt Brace College Publishing: ISBN 0-15-512826-4.

Try Chambal:
http://www.chambal.com/csin/9780155674257/ (vol. 1)
http://www.chambal.com/csin/9780155128262/ (vol. 2)

The Jewish Bible is divided into three parts: the Law (Torah), the Prophets, and a miscellaneous group of works known as the Writings, which correspond roughly to the Christian Old Testament. (The Catholic text contains passages and works not admitted into the Jewish Bible.) Of these three, the Law is in some ways the most important, for it is the law that defines for Jews what God expects of them and provides a means ensure win his favor and protection. The Law is viewed by pious Jews as a special blessing granted God’s chosen people to show them the path to virtue while other peoples languish in ignorant sin. Many people assume that the ethics of Judaism and Christianity are based primarily on the Ten Commandments, but in fact Jews are called to observe some six hundred commandments and Christians usually do not observe two of the ten, having rejected the Jewish Sabbath for the Lord s Day early in their history and freely violating the commandment against graven images by sculpting innumerable images of Christ as the divine savior. The first ten are set apart, and repeated, in the text, and are obviously considered as important; but in some ways the subsequent laws are more revealing. Almost all peoples have outlawed murder, theft, and adultery, however they defined them; but the other Jewish laws reflect the attitudes and customs of the people who followed them. An orthodox Jew is expected to observe strictly all of the laws (except, of course those relating to ritual sacrifice which were suspended after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE). Unlike in Christianity, belief is not the central issue–obedience is. The delivery of the law is depicted as the aftermath of generations of slavery in Egypt followed by forty years of wandering in the wilderness of the Sinai Peninsula.

What provision in the law might discourage many Hebrew slaves from seeking their freedom? What laws enforce respect for parents? In what ways are the laws on slaves different from those of Hammurabi’s Code? What does the law have to say about the proper treatment of enemies and aliens?

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Then God spoke all these words: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. (1)

You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. (2) You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. (3)

Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work– you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it. (4)

Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

You shall not murder.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal.

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. (5)

When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance and said to Moses, You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die. Moses said to the people, Do not be afraid; for God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin. Then the people stood at a distance, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.

The LORD said to Moses: Thus you shall say to the Israelites: You have seen for yourselves that I spoke with you from heaven. You shall not make gods of silver alongside me, nor shall you make for yourselves gods of gold. You need make for me only an altar of earth and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your offerings of well-being, your sheep and your oxen; in every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you. But if you make for me an altar of stone, do not build it of hewn stones; if you use a chisel upon it you profane it. You shall not go up by steps to my altar, so that your nakedness may not be exposed on it. (6)

These are the ordinances that you shall set before them: When you buy a male Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, but in the seventh he shall go out a free person, without debt. (7) If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s and he shall go out alone. But if the slave declares, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out a free person, then his master shall bring him before God. He shall be brought to the door or the doorpost; and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; (8)

When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out (9) as the male slaves do. If she does not please her master, who designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed; (10) he shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people since he has dealt unfairly with her. If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish the food, clothing, or marital rights of the first wife. (11) And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out without debt, without payment of money.

Whoever strikes a person mortally shall be put to death. If it was not premeditated, but came about by an act of God, then I will appoint for you a place to which the killer may flee. (12) But if someone willfully attacks and kills another by treachery, you shall take the killer from my altar for execution.

Whoever strikes father or mother shall be put to death.

Whoever kidnaps a person, whether that person has been sold or is still held in possession, shall be put to death.

Whoever curses father or mother shall be put to death.

When individuals quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone or fist so that the injured party, though not dead, is confined to bed, but recovers and walks around outside with the help of a staff, then the assailant shall be free of liability, except to pay for the loss of time, and to arrange for full recovery.

When a slaveowner strikes a male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies immediately, the owner shall be punished. But if the slave survives a day or two, there is no punishment; for the slave is the owner s property.

When people who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no further harm follows, the one responsible shall be fined what the woman’s husband demands, paying as much as the judges determine. If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. (13)

When a slaveowner strikes the eye of a male or female slave, destroying it, the owner shall let the slave go, a free person, to compensate for the eye. If the owner knocks out a tooth of a male or female slave, the slave shall be let go, a free person, to compensate for the tooth. . . .

When a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged to be married, and lies with her, he shall give the bride-price for her and make her his wife. But if her father refuses to give her to him, he shall pay an amount equal to the bride-price for virgins.

You shall not permit a female sorcerer to live. (14)

Whoever lies with (15) an animal shall be put to death.

Whoever sacrifices to any god, other than the Lord alone, shall be devoted to destruction.

You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. You shall not abuse any widow or orphan. If you do abuse them, when they cry out to me, I will surely heed their cry; my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children orphans.(16)

If you lend money to my people, to the poor among you, you shall not deal with them as a creditor; you shall not exact interest from them. (17) If you take your neighbor’s cloak in pawn, you shall restore it before the sun goes down; for it may be your neighbor’s only clothing to use as cover; in what else shall that person sleep? And if your neighbor cries out to me, I will listen, for I am compassionate.

You shall not revile God, or curse a leader of your people.

You shall not delay to make offerings from the fullness of your harvest and from the outflow of your presses. The firstborn of your sons you shall give to me. You shall do the same with your oxen and with your sheep: seven days it shall remain with its mother; on the eighth day you shall give it to me. (18)

You shall be people consecrated to me; therefore you shall not eat any meat that is mangled by beasts in the field; you shall throw it to the dogs. (19)

You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with the wicked to act as a malicious witness. You shall not follow a majority in wrongdoing; when you bear witness in a lawsuit, you shall not side with the majority so as to pervert justice; nor shall you be partial to the poor in a lawsuit. (20)

When you come upon your enemy’s ox or donkey going astray, you shall bring it back.

When you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden and you would hold back from setting it free, you must help to set it free.

You shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in their lawsuits. Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent and those in the right, for I will not acquit the guilty. You shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the officials, and subverts the cause of those who are in the right.

You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

New Revised Standard Version

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(1) Although later Judaism insists that only one god exists, some scholars have argued that this wording reflects a time when Jews acknowledged the existence of other gods but forbade their worship.

(2) This has usually been broadly interpreted by orthodox Jews as a prohibition against all figurative art, establishing a pattern also followed by orthodox Muslims. Although at some periods Jews have decorated buildings and manuscripts with images from the Bible, their general avoidance of divine sculpture led to a historic misunderstanding when the Romans invaded the sanctuary of the Temple in Jerusalem and, finding it empty, announced to the world that the Jews were atheists. More strongly than circumcision, the rejection of idols set the Jews apart from the people who surrounded them.

(3) The desire to avoid misusing God’s name led eventually to the custom of not pronouncing it or spelling it out fully. Some English-speaking Jews even today follow this pattern by writing the deity s name as G*d.

(4) The Sabbath was a unique Jewish invention, which attracted some criticism from outsiders as an excuse for laziness, but most modern people are probably grateful to it as the ultimate origin of the custom of the weekend.

(5) Sometimes interpreted as prohibiting mere envy, this may have been more narrowly intended at those who would plot to seize what was not theirs.

(6) Steps might cause a parting of the front of the skirt which men wore.

(7) Following the pattern of six days of labor followed by a day of rest.

(8) A mark of enslavement, comparable to branding. and he shall serve him for life.

(9) Be freed.

(10) Bought back by her parents. It is assumed that she has been bought as a wife or concubine.

(11) Compare the prohibition in the Qur’an against treating multiple wives unequally.

(12) The concept of places of refuge or sanctuary was also held in ancient Greece, and to some extent in Medieval Europe. A fleeing criminal could take refuge at an altar or other sacred spot and demand protection from justice. Here the law provides an exception for what is now called involuntary manslaughter.

(13) Note that the death of a fetus is treated as much less serious than lasting injury to the mother. The “eye for an eye” pattern used here and elsewhere was moderated later in Jewish practice by allowing money fines to substitute for mutilation; but in various periods both Christians and Muslims have also used the severing of members as punishment.

(14) Used as the classic justification for witch-burning by Christians.

(15) I. e., has intercourse with. Many of the laws prohibit various sexual activities.

(16) This unequivocal demand for mercy and hospitality to foreigners is repeated elsewhere in the Jewish Bible, and becomes a hallmark of the prophetic era.

(17) This prohibition against charging interest to coreligionists was also maintained by the Medieval Catholic Church; but the capital necessary for trade was provided by all owing Jews, who could not charge each other interest, to be lenders to Christians. Christians maneuvered Jews into this position and made it impossible for the moneylenders to enforce repayment in court (despite the fantasy depicted in Shakespeare s Merchant of Venice). They then bitterly reproached them for their greed. One of the crucial foundation stones for modern capitalism was laid when Protestants accepted the legitimacy of interest.

(18) To the Hebrews, this dedication of the first-born to God (as priests) reflected the tradition that their first-born had been spared when God killed those of the Egyptians. Christian theologians later saw in it an anticipation of the sacrificial offering of Jesus as God s son in the crucifixion.

(19) Muslims are also prohibited from eating carrion.

(20) This passage spells out in more detail what is meant by the commandment against bearing false witness.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This is an excerpt from Reading About the World, Volume 1, edited by Paul Brians, Mary Gallwey, Douglas Hughes, Azfar Hussain, Richard Law, Michael Myers Michael Neville, Roger Schlesinger, Alice Spitzer, and Susan Swan and published by Harcourt Brace Custom Publishing. The reader was created for use in the World Civilization course at Washington State University, but material on this page may be used for educational purposes by permission of the editor-in-chief:

Paul Brians
Department of English
Washington State University
Pullman 99164-5020

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