“... This principle would lead one to expect that the owner should not be liable even if a chattel-slave died immediately from the beating. The stricture of verse 20 comes from the inclusion of the law about a debt-slave in LH 115–116 who is not called a wardum or amtum, but a nipûtum. In contrast to legislation about chattel-slaves, this Akkadian law describes and punishes a person’s deadly abuse of his own debt-servant. CC accordingly prescribes vengeance when an owner beats and kills his slave the same day. A significant difference, however, is that LH places no time limit on the death of the debt-servant. Presumably, if the victim died a week later and the causation between beating and death was clear, the creditor would be punished. ...”