Hammurabi’s Code
King Hammurabi set down rules for everyone in his empire to follow during his reign from 1792-1750 BCE. The
“code of laws” told the people of the Babylonian Empire how to settle conflicts in all areas of life. Hammurabi’s
Code, based on earlier Sumerian codes and written in c. 1780 BCE, contained 282 laws organized in different
categories.
1. If a man accuses another of murder but cannot prove it, the accuser shall be put to death.
3. If anyone accuses another person of a capital offense before the elders and does not prove what he has charged,
he shall be put to death.
6. If anyone steals the property of a temple or of the government, he and the one who received the stolen thing shall
be put to death.
8. If a man steals, he shall repay thirty fold. If he hasn’t the money, he shall be put to death.
14. If anyone steals the younger son of another man, he shall be put to death.
15. If a man helps a slave to escape from the city, he shall be put to death.
16. If anyone receive into his house a runaway male or female slave and does notify the court, the master of the
house shall be put to death.
17. If anyone finds runaway male or female slaves in the open country the slave must be returned to his master.
21. If anyone breaks into a person’s house to steal from them, he shall be put to death.
25. If someone comes to put out a fire in another person’s house, but steals from the master of the house, he shall
be thrown into that same fire.
45. If a man rents out his field for farming, but bad weather comes and destroys the harvest, then the renter loses
his money, not the landlord.
48. If anyone owes a debt for a loan, but does not harvest any grain because a storm destroys the field, he will pay
no rent for that year.
109. If conspirators meet in the house of a tavern-keeper, and these conspirators are not captured and delivered to
the court, the tavern-keeper shall be put to death.
117. If a man sells his wife or child to settle a debt, they shall work in the house of the buyer for three years, and
regain their freedom in the fourth.
195. If a man strikes his father, they shall cut off his hand.
202. If a man strikes the cheek of his superior, he shall be whipped sixty times with an oxtail whip.
204. If a common man strikes a common man on the cheek, he shall pay ten pieces of silver.
205. If a man’s slave strikes the son of a noble man on the cheek, they shall cut off his ear.
206. If a man strikes another in a quarrel and wounds him unintentionally, he shall only be responsible for paying the
doctor.
218. If a doctor carelessly makes a large incision on his patient with the operating knife and kills him, the doctor’s
hands shall be cut off.
*Adapted from “World History for Us All” and World Studies: The Ancient World