Texts in Conversation
Exodus 22 follows an established legal tradition from the Code of Hammurabi. Both describe everyday cases where property is left in someone else’s care, disputes arise over loss or denial, oaths are required, and repayment is enforced.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Code of Hammurabi
Babylonian Legal Text
Ancient Near East
119 If anyone fails to pay a debt and sells for money a slave woman who has borne him children, the slave's owner shall repay the money the merchant paid, and she shall be freed. 120 If anyone stores grain for safekeeping in another person's house, and harm comes to the grain in storage, or the owner of the house opens the granary and takes some of the grain, or he denies altogether that the grain was stored in his house: the owner of the grain shall declare his grain under oath before the god, and the owner of the house shall repay him for all the grain he took. 121 If anyone stores grain in another man's house, he shall pay storage of one gur for every five ka of grain per year. 122 If anyone gives another silver, gold, or anything else for safekeeping, he shall show everything to a witness, draw up a contract, and then hand it over for safekeeping. 123 If he hands it over without witnesses or a contract, and the keeper denies receiving it, he has no legal claim. 124 If anyone gives silver, gold, or anything else to another for safekeeping before a witness, and the keeper denies it, he shall be brought before a judge, and he shall repay in full everything he denied.
Exodus 22:6
Hebrew Bible
6 “If a fire breaks out and spreads to thorn bushes, so that stacked grain or standing grain or the whole field is consumed, the one who started the fire must surely make restitution. 7 “If a man gives his neighbor money or articles for safekeeping and it is stolen from the man’s house, if the thief is caught, he must repay double. 8 If the thief is not caught, then the owner of the house will be brought before the judges to see whether he has laid his hand on his neighbor’s goods. 9 In all cases of illegal possessions, whether for an ox, a donkey, a sheep, a garment, or any kind of lost item, about which someone says ‘This belongs to me,’ the matter of the two of them will come before the judges, and the one whom the judges declare guilty must repay double to his neighbor. 10 If a man gives his neighbor a donkey or an ox or a sheep or any beast to keep, and it dies or is injured or is carried away without anyone seeing it, 11 then there will be an oath to the Lord between the two of them, that he has not laid his hand on his neighbor’s goods, and its owner will accept this, and he will not have to pay. 12 But if it was stolen from him, he will pay its owner.
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Notes and References
"... The deposit laws of Exodus 22:6–8 correspond thematically to LH 264–266 of the sequential template of Hammurabi’s laws ... LH 264–265 and 120–126 have more in common that just the idiom of custodianship, noted previously. The shepherd is phenomenologically like the house owner who guards another person’s property. Both sets of laws also speak about the shepherd’s or custodian’s misappropriation of or malfeasance toward the property. Both sets require multifold payment (LH 265 and 120, 124). And both sets use the verb nakārum to describe a context of deceit (LH 265 D-stem “to alter”; LH 120 and 124 G-stem “to deny”). One can also add the declaration “before the god”, found in LH 266, which follows LH 264–265, and the declarations “before the god” required in LH 120 and 126. LH 266 presumes a type of animal bailment like LH 264–265. Such declarations are fitting in cases where there is a dispute about the theft of property of whatever type. The similarities between CC’s and Hammurabi’s deposit laws are clear ..."
Wright, David P.
Inventing God's Law: How the Covenant Code of the Bible Used and Revised the Laws of Hammurabi
(pp. 243-245) Oxford University Press, 2009
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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