A law that protected the weak

Here the ISBE draws its sharpest contrast, and it is the ISBE's own interpretive reading, offered as such. Comparing the two bodies of law, it finds "a marked contrast in spirit": "while both the Law of the Covenant and its enlargement in [Deuteronomy] guarded the interest of and secured justice, and mercy too, to slaves and the poor, the laws of Hammurabi were framed rather in the interests of the well-to-do." Its example is the runaway slave. Hammurabi's code §16 makes sheltering a fugitive slave a capital crime, "If a man has harboured in his house a manservant or a maidservant fugitive from the palace … the owner of that house shall be put to death." The covenant law commands the opposite: a runaway slave is not to be handed back but given refuge, "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master a servant that is escaped … he shall dwell with thee" (Deuteronomy 23:15–16). Alongside it the ISBE sets the release of the Hebrew servant after six years (Exodus 21:2–6; Deuteronomy 15:12–18), the protection of the bondwoman (Exodus 21:7–11), the death penalty for man-stealing (Exodus 21:16), and the Jubilee release from debt-servitude (Leviticus 25:39–55). (A fuller comparison would note that Hammurabi's code also carries protective and welfare provisions; the ISBE's framing leans to the contrast. Source: ISBE 1915, "Law in the Old Testament" [Rule].)