Texts in Conversation
Exodus 20 follows a tradition based on the Code of Hammurabi, where justice is connected to honoring a deity’s name at a sacred place. Hammurabi preserves his own name on a monument and Exodus reshapes this to emphasize honoring God's name.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Code of Hammurabi
Babylonian Legal Text
Ancient Near East
The great gods have called me. I am the shepherd who brings salvation, whose staff is straight, the good shadow spread over my city. I carry the inhabitants of the land of Sumer and Akkad on my breast; in my shelter I have let them rest in peace; in my deep wisdom I have enclosed them. So that the strong might not wrong the weak, and so that the widow and the orphan might be protected, I have set up these my precious words in Babylon, the city where Anu and Bel raise high their heads, in E-Sagil, the temple whose foundations stand firm like heaven and earth, to declare justice in the land, to settle all disputes, and to heal all injuries; I have written them on my memorial stone, before my image as king of righteousness. I am the king who rules among the kings of the cities. My words are well considered; there is no wisdom like mine. By the command of Shamash, the great judge of heaven and earth, let righteousness go out over the land; by the order of Marduk, my lord, let no destruction come to my monument. In E-Sagil, which I love, let my name be repeated forever. Let the oppressed man who has a case at law come and stand before this image of me as king of righteousness; let him read the inscription and understand my precious words; the inscription will explain his case to him. He will see what is just, and his heart will be glad, so that he will say: "Hammurabi is a ruler who is like a father to his subjects, who holds the words of Marduk in reverence, who has won victory for Marduk in the north and the south, who rejoices the heart of Marduk his lord, who has secured blessings for his subjects forever, and who has established order in the land."
Exodus 20:24
Hebrew Bible
23 You must not make gods of silver alongside me, nor make gods of gold for yourselves. 24 “‘You must make for me an altar made of earth, and you will sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your cattle. In every place where I cause my name to be honored I will come to you and I will bless you. 25 If you make me an altar of stone, you must not build it of stones shaped with tools, for if you use your tool on it you have defiled it.
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Notes and References
"... The key to understanding many of the correspondences in the apodictic laws is to realize that the Covenant Code has replaced Hammurabi and Mesopotamian gods with Yahweh. The Israelite-Judean god is now the author and revealer of law. His cult symbol, the altar, has replaced Hammurabi’s temple statue. Just as the exhortatory block has Hammurabi’s name memorialized at a cult site (“May my name [šumī] be recalled in the Esagil temple favorably forever”), The Covenant Code has Yahweh’s name memorialized at a cult site (“In every place where I cause my name to be recalled”) and prohibits the memorializing of other gods (“you shall not mention/recall the name of other gods”). The Covenant Code extends the theme of name memorialization to prohibit the cursing of deity and the native “chieftain” (i.e., the king). The coming of a wronged man before Hammurabi’s statue and stela at the Esagil temple (“let a wronged man who has a case come before the statue of me, king of justice”) is replaced with the thrice-yearly visit of male pilgrims for the festivals ..."
Wright, David P.
Inventing God's Law: How the Covenant Code of the Bible Used and Revised the Laws of Hammurabi
(p. 11) 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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