Texts in Conversation
Deuteronomy rejects the punishment of an offender's child allowed in Hammurabi's building laws. Requiring a person to die only for their own crime prevents a family relationship from making an innocent relative pay for another person's actions.
Share:
2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Code of Hammurabi 1:240
Babylonian Legal Text
Ancient Near East
229 If a builder builds a house for someone and does not build it properly, and the house he built collapses and kills its owner, the builder shall be put to death. 230 If it kills the owner's son, the builder's son shall be put to death. 231 If it kills the owner's slave, the builder shall give the owner a slave for the slave. 232 If it destroys property, he shall replace everything that was destroyed, and because he did not build the house properly and it collapsed, he shall rebuild the house at his own expense. 233 If a builder builds a house for someone and, even before it is finished, the walls look like they are about to fall, the builder must strengthen the walls at his own expense.
Deuteronomy 24:16
Hebrew Bible
16 Fathers must not be put to death for what their children do, nor children for what their fathers do; each must be put to death for his own sin. 17 You must not pervert justice due a resident foreigner or an orphan, or take a widow’s garment as security for a loan. 18 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I am commanding you to do all this. 19 Whenever you reap your harvest in your field and leave some unraked grain there, you must not return to get it; it should go to the resident foreigner, orphan, and widow so that the Lord your God may bless all the work you do.
Search:
Notes and References
“... A very strange aspect of some of the laws is vicarious punishment. In several cases, the offender does not pay the penalty but someone else who stands in relation to him. For example, in the Middle Assyrian Laws,36 the rape of an unbetrothed virgin who lives in her father’s house is punished by the ravishing of the rapist’s wife, who also remains thereafter with the father of the victim. Hammurabi decrees that if a man struck a pregnant woman, thereby causing her to miscarry and die, it is the assailant’s daughter who is put to death.37 If a builder erected a house which collapsed, killing the owner’s son, then the builder’s son, not the builder, is put to death.38 Judicial vicarious punishment is unthinkable in the Torah. In fact, it is explicitly outlawed in Deuteronomy 24:16: Parents shall not be put to death for children, nor children be put to death for parents: a person shall be put to death only for his own crime. ...”
* 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.
Your Feedback:
Leave a Comment
Anonymous comments are welcome. All comments are subject to moderation.
User Comments
,