Hammurabi’s most memorable accomplishment was the proclamation of an extensive law code, introduced about 1755 B.C.E. Hammurabi’s was not the first law code in Mesopotamia; the earliest goes back to about 2100 B.C.E. Like the codes of the earlier lawgivers, Hammurabi’s law code proclaimed that he issued his laws on divine authority “to establish law and justice in the language of the land, thereby promoting the welfare of the people.” Hammurabi’s code set a variety of punishments for breaking the law, including fines and physical punishment such as mutilation, whipping, and burning. It demanded that the punishment fit the crime, calling for “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” at least among social equals, although higher-ranking people could pay a fine to lower-ranking victims instead of having an arm broken or losing an eye.

Hammurabi’s code provides a wealth of information about daily life in Mesopotamia, although, like all law codes, it prescribes what the lawgivers hope will be the situation rather than providing a description of real life. We cannot know if its laws were enforced, but we can use it to see what was significant to people in Hammurabi’s society. Because of farming’s fundamental importance, the code dealt extensively with agriculture. Tenants faced severe penalties for neglecting the land or not working it at all. Since irrigation was essential to grow crops, tenants had to keep the canals and ditches in good repair. Anyone whose neglect of the canals resulted in damaged crops had to either bear the cost of losses or be sold into slavery. The code also regulated other trades, and artisans had to guarantee the quality of their goods and services to consumers. Hammurabi gave careful attention to marriage and the family. As elsewhere in the area, marriage had aspects of a business agreement. The groom or his father offered the prospective bride’s father a gift, and if this was acceptable, the bride’s father provided his daughter with a dowry, which technically remained hers. The penalty for adultery, defined as sex between a married woman and a man not her husband, was death, but a husband had the power to spare his wife by obtaining a pardon for her from the king. (Sex between a married man and a woman who was not his wife was not defined as adultery and carried no penalty.) A father could not disinherit a son without just cause, and the code ordered the courts to forgive a son for his first offense. On family matters and other issues, Hammurabi’s code influenced other law codes, including those later written down in Hebrew Scripture (see “The Jewish Religion”).