Bible Synapse
Code of Hammurabi
Inscription · c. 1792–1750 BC · Before the kings · also called Laws of Hammurabi, Hammurabi stele
See it on the map and timeline
- Date
- c. 1792–1750 BC (the stele’s carving, in Hammurabi’s reign)
- Found
- Acropolis of Susa, Iran, 1901. Found in pieces in the winter of 1901–1902 by the French mission led by Jacques de Morgan. An Elamite ruler had carried it to Susa from Babylonia in the 12th century BC.
- Now
- Louvre, Paris (Sb 8)
- Passages
- Exodus 21:23–25, Exodus 21:28–32, Leviticus 24:19–20, Deuteronomy 19:21
What it is
A basalt stele 2.25 metres tall. At the top, Hammurabi, king of Babylon, stands before the sun god Shamash, the god of justice. Below, more than 4,000 lines of cuneiform set out some 280 laws between a prologue and an epilogue. The laws are written as cases: if a man does this, then that shall be done to him.
How it connects to the Bible
These laws are a parallel to the law collections of Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy, not evidence for them. Both use the same ‘if … then’ case form, both apply the rule of like for like (“eye for eye, tooth for tooth”), and both deal with an ox that gores a person.
What scholars debate
Most scholars explain the likeness by a legal tradition shared across the ancient Near East; a few argue that the Covenant Code of Exodus 21–23 drew on Hammurabi’s laws directly.