The Code of Hammurabi is a list of 282 laws, carved on a single stone pillar around 1792 BCE, organized by practical subject rather than legal theory. The list covers bodily injury, theft, marriage and divorce, debt, wages, professional malpractice, irrigation, and false accusations, with penalties scaled to the social rank of the people involved. The sections below walk through the laws that come up most often, grouped the way the code itself groups them.
Bodily Injury: The Eye-for-an-Eye Laws
Laws 196, 197, and 200 are the provisions most people associate with the code. Law 196 says that if a free person destroys the eye of another free person, the offender’s eye is destroyed in return. Law 197 applies the same mirror to broken bones. Law 200 extends it to teeth: knock out the teeth of an equal, and you lose yours.1Washington State University. The Code of Hammurabi 18th Century BCE
Scholars generally read these rules as a cap on vengeance rather than a license for it. The code fixed the price of an injury at one eye, one bone, one tooth, which was less than the retaliation a wronged family might otherwise take.
How Social Class Changed the Penalty
The mirror-punishment principle only ran between equals. Babylonian society was tiered into the awilum (elite), the mushkenum (free commoners), and the wardum (enslaved), and the code switched from physical retaliation to a cash payment whenever an injury crossed those lines.
Law 198 says that if a free person blinds or breaks the bone of a commoner, the offender pays half a kilogram of silver instead of losing an eye or a bone. Law 199 drops the figure further: destroying the eye or bone of an enslaved person costs the offender half that person’s market value, paid to the owner.2Hanover College History Department. Hammurabi’s Code of Laws The injury is the same; the price depends entirely on who was hurt.
Marriage, Divorce, and Family Discipline
Law 128 makes a written contract the threshold requirement for marriage. Without a document, a woman is not legally a wife, and neither party can claim the protections the code otherwise provides.3REFEMA. The Woman in Marriage as Reflected in the Code of Hammurabi
Law 142 gives a woman a conditional right to leave. If she claims her husband is neglectful, the case is investigated; if the inquiry finds she has not been unfaithful and the fault lies with him, she keeps her dowry and returns to her father’s household.4eHammurabi. Hammurabi’s Law Code – Section 142
Discipline within the household ran the other direction. Law 195 says that a son who strikes his father has his hand cut off.1Washington State University. The Code of Hammurabi 18th Century BCE
Debt, Bondage, and Crop Failure
Law 117 allowed a debtor to sell family members, or himself, into service to clear an obligation, but it capped the arrangement at three years. In the fourth year, the person had to be released.5eHammurabi. Hammurabi’s Law Code – Section 117 This limit kept debt from permanently erasing a family from the economy.
Law 48 handled the opposite problem: what to do when a debtor could not pay through no fault of his own. If flood or drought wiped out the crop, the creditor could not collect interest that year, and the contract was adjusted to the loss.2Hanover College History Department. Hammurabi’s Code of Laws A single bad harvest would not finish a farmer.
Fixed Wages and Prices
The code does not leave wages to negotiation. Laws 268 through 277 set specific daily rates. Hiring an ox for threshing cost twenty ka of corn. An ox-cart with a driver ran one hundred eighty ka of corn per day. A day laborer earned six gerahs of silver during peak season and five during the off-season. Skilled workers such as potters and tailors were paid five gerahs per day.6The Avalon Project. Code of Hammurabi These were mandated figures, not suggestions.
Professional Liability for Builders and Physicians
Two provisions in the code tie professional failure directly to the professional’s body. Law 229 says that if a builder constructs a house so poorly that it collapses and kills the owner, the builder is put to death.6The Avalon Project. Code of Hammurabi
Law 218 does the same for surgery. If a doctor uses a bronze instrument on a patient and the patient dies or loses an eye, the doctor’s hand is cut off.7The Nineveh Medical Project. Information From Texts The pattern is consistent across both trades: the hand or the life that caused the harm pays for it.
Irrigation and Farming Liability
Water management had its own cluster of laws, because Babylonian agriculture depended on it. Law 53 says that if a landowner is too careless to maintain his dam and it breaks, flooding neighboring fields, the negligent owner can be sold to compensate the affected farmers. Law 54 goes further: if the proceeds do not cover the losses, the person and his possessions are divided among the farmers whose crops were destroyed.6The Avalon Project. Code of Hammurabi
Lower-stakes irrigation mistakes still carried a bill. Law 55 charges the careless irrigator corn equivalent to the neighbor’s loss when opened ditches accidentally flood another field. Law 56 fixes the rate for deliberate flooding at ten gur of corn for every ten gan of land submerged.6The Avalon Project. Code of Hammurabi
Theft and Burglary
Property crimes drew some of the code’s harshest and most symbolic penalties. Law 6 makes stealing from a temple or the state a capital offense, and anyone who knowingly receives the stolen goods faces the same penalty.8Northern Virginia Community College. Hammurabi Code of Laws Excerpts
Law 21 covers burglary through a wall. The burglar is killed and buried in front of the hole he made.9Carnegie Mellon University. Hammurabi’s Code Law 25 addresses looters at a house fire: anyone who steals from a burning building while pretending to help put out the flames is thrown into the fire.10Online Library of Liberty. 1750 – The Code of Hammurabi (Johns Translation) The method of the crime becomes the method of the punishment.
False Accusation and the River Ordeal
The code opens with laws about lying in court. Law 1 says that anyone who accuses another person of a capital crime but cannot prove it is put to death. Law 3 applies the same consequence to false testimony before the elders in a capital matter.6The Avalon Project. Code of Hammurabi
Law 2 handles accusations that ordinary evidence cannot resolve, such as sorcery. The accused leaps into a sacred river. If the river “conquers” the accused and he drowns, the accuser takes his house. If the accused survives, the accuser is executed for the false charge and the accused takes the accuser’s property.10Online Library of Liberty. 1750 – The Code of Hammurabi (Johns Translation) Both sides carry real risk, which is the design.
Reading All 282 Laws
The laws summarized above are a small fraction of the full list. A complete English version of all 282 laws, in the widely used L.W. King translation, is hosted by the Avalon Project at Yale Law School.6The Avalon Project. Code of Hammurabi That is the source to consult for provisions on inheritance, adoption, military service, boat hire, livestock, and the many narrower subjects the code also addresses.