Hammurabi Code
The Code
When the Code of Hammurabi appeared, the “king is already the source of justice; the judges are strictly supervised, and appeal to the king is allowed”.[1]
Over four thousand years ago in the kingdom of Ur, there were systematic methods and specified rules in courts of record. They settled, “disputes arising out of sales, inheritance, gifts, or divorce”. There were different kinds of courts with different jurisdictional authority. “When the claim had been ‘in the king’s name’ and rebutted, the case was settled by an oath either taken by one of the parties or by a witness.”[2]
Power to execute
You could be executed for questioning the authority of the princes and gods appointed by the king.
- “And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.” Genesis 11:28
Haran did not just die, he was executed as a result of some presumed infraction of the codified laws. The word “died” is from (מ֖וֹת) muwth, which means “to die, kill, have one executed… to die prematurely… to kill, put to death, dispatch”. In the text we see "wayyāmāṯ kaśdîm bəūr mōwlaḏtōw"(אביו בארץ מולדתו באור כשדים׃) which is "died of the Chaldeese in Ur where (Haran) was a nativite."
Did Haran violate one of the Hammurabi Codes and was "put to death"?
Did Moses codify laws like Hammurabi and give men the power to put to death those who did not conform to his laws?
The Code of the Dragon
Draco of 7th century BC, also called Drako or Drakon meaning dragon or serpent. He was the first recorded legislator of Athens in Ancient Greece.
He replaced the prevailing system of oral law with a written code to be enforced only by a court of law created from the top down where the rulers were the fountainhead of justice and the people no longer have the power to decide fact and law. Draco was the first democratic legislator requested by the Athenian.
Draco codified laws characterized by extreme harshness which led to the establishment of the adjective draconian meaning the unforgiving rules or laws.
We see the codification of laws under Hammurabi Codes with the same merciless death penalties.
Solon, would repeal most of those laws twenty five years later, including those related to debt slavery.
The death penalty remained the law on murder.
Power to rule
The power to rule and make law for the people comes from the power to create a table of dainties which the people desire to consume.
An early codified universal government welfare was instituted in the 7th century (634 CE) in the time of the Rashidun caliph Umar. The first modern welfare state was Imperial Germany (1871–1918), where the Bismarck government introduced social security in 1889. These all led to tyrany.
But Sumer existed as a welfare city -state long before and likely Cain and Nimrod were also welfare states with codes and laws enforced by government instead of the people. Sodom also weakened the people in a time of affluence. Certainly Rome had their system of free bread that subjected the people.
Proverbs and Polybius to say nothing of Plutarch all warned that the dainties of rulers were deceitful meats. Peter, Paul, and David warned that their welfare tables were a snare and the covetous practices they allow makes people merchandise.
Codes within the law
Keys of the Kingdom Sabbath Hour Natural law part 3
Codification of law is not the beginning of law but can only happen within the parameters of existing law. That ixisting law has been known as the Natural law, Law of Nature, or "Divine Will" which are convertible phrases, meaning Right reason.
Those laws are unchangable in a cause and effect universe while the civil law or "legal systems", which we may call "law", are ever changing because they are only created by men through contracts, covenants, and constitutions and the consent of those who would be governed.
There are some who want to turn the Torah, which was an attempt to edify and explain the Law of Nature and nature's God forming a more common law system through the peoples' courts dependent upon Judgements which set a precedent where congregations of the people acting as juries gather to apply the precepts upon precepts of God's right Reason.
In our study of Exodus 18 we see Moses setting up those people's courts which would eventually call for a network of appeals courts run by the most charitable people in the nation. It was a legal system dependent upon what may be written upon the heart and mind of the individuals who sought the righteousness of God while attending to the weightier matters of law Judgement, mercy, and faith of the law and its application in conformity to those precepts upon precepts.
That, of course, . the private interpretation of law based merely upon our own personal knowledge is a mistake or sin as Christ tried to explain to the Pharisees who had strayed into an area of Legal charity through the Corban of Herod. That brought them into conflict with the law or the Logos.