The Code of Hammurabi

The laws of Hammurabi, king of Babylon, translated by C. H. W. Johns (1903).

Pick a page of laws.

An Ancient Reference Book, not part of the Bible. The laws are shown as Johns translated them. Johns did not translate the king’s long opening and closing words; his preface says so. It is free to use.

Part I

What it is

What the code is, where it was found, and how this translation is laid out.

A law code from Babylon. Encyclopaedia Britannica calls it “the most complete and perfect extant collection of Babylonian laws,” made during the reign of Hammurabi (1792–1750 B.C.).
A stone found in 1901. Britannica: it was “discovered at Susa in 1901” and is “now preserved in the Louvre.” Johns describes it as “a block of black diorite, nearly eight feet high.”
An older date on the title page. Johns’s 1903 title page dates the king to B.C. 2285–2242. The dates above are Britannica’s.
Laws 66 to 99 are missing. Johns writes that five columns of the stone were “erased and the stone repolished.” His numbering jumps from 65 to 100, and he adds three laws known from later copies.

Part II

Where it meets the Bible

Laws that can be read beside the Law (Torah) of Moses. Verses are quoted from the ASV.

Eye for eye. Law 196: “If a man has caused the loss of a gentleman’s eye, his eye one shall cause to be lost.” Compare Exodus 21:24: “eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”
The goring ox. Law 251: if an ox known to push has not been shut up and kills a man, its owner “shall pay half a mina of silver.” Compare Exodus 21:29: “the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death.”
Read side by side. Many laws begin “If a man ...” and then give the penalty, as do many laws in Exodus 21 to 23.

Part III

The laws

Five pages of laws, in Johns’s numbering.

Sources

Where these facts come from

Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Code of Hammurabi,” checked 30 October 2026. Johns’s own words: his preface, Project Gutenberg ebook 17150. Bible verses: American Standard Version (1901), checked by machine.