We read as follows about the Laws of Dadusha:
The Codex Ešnunna was written in the nineteenth century, about a generation before the more famous Codex Hammurapi of Babylon. It was a time when the kingdom of Ešnunna became very powerful, especially under its king Naram-Sin who ruled Assyria. Laws from Ešnunna were promulagated later by the Ešnunna king Dadusha. These laws have been compared with the biblical Covenant Code for the alternating arrangement of some civil and penal cases; but the most striking parallel for content comes in one specific law about a goring ox:
Codex Ešnunna 53:
“If an ox gored and killed an(other) ox, both ox owners shall divide the price of the live ox and the carcase of the dead ox.”
Exodus 21:35:
“And if one man’s ox harms another’s so that it dies, the owners must sell the live ox and share the price of it … they shall also share the dead animal.”
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The Laws are written in Akkadian and consist of two tablets which are marked with A and B. In 1948, Albrecht Goetze of the Yale University had translated and published them. In some sources the Laws of Eshnunna are mentioned as the Laws of Bilalama due to the belief that the Eshnunnian ruler probably was their originator, but Goetze maintained that tablet B was originated under the reign of Dadusha. The text of the prologue is broken at the point where the ruler who promulgated the laws was specified.
Albrecht Goetze has noticed the specific style of expression. The laws were composed in a mode that facilitated memorizing. A distinguished Israeli scientist and one of the foremost experts on this collection of laws, Reuven Yaron of the University of Jerusalem concerning this matter stated: “What matters to me – and might have mattered to those who fashioned them almost 4000 years ago – is the ease of remembering the text.”
The conditional sentence (“If A then B” – as it also is the case with the other Mesopotamian laws) is an attribute of this codification. In 23 paragraphs, it appears in the form šumma awilum – “If a man…” After the disposition, a precise sanction follows, e.g. LU42(A): “If a man bit and severed the nose of a man, one mina silver he shall weigh out.”
The Laws clearly show signs of social stratification, mainly focussing on two different classes: the muškenum and awilum. The audience of the Laws of Eshnunna is more extensive than in the case of the earlier cuneiform codifications: awilum – free men and women (mar awilim and marat awilim), muškenum, wife (aššatum), son (maru), slaves of both sexes – male (wardum) and female (amtum) – which are not only objects of law as in classical slavery, and delicts where the victims were slaves have been sanctioned, and other class designations as ubarum, apþarum, mudum that are not ascertained.
Reuven Yaron has divided the offences of the Laws of Eshnunna into five groups. The articles of the first group had to be collected from all over the Laws and the articles of the other four were roughly ordered one after the other:
1. Theft and related offences,
2. False distraint,
3. Sexual offences,
4. Bodily injuries,
5. Damages caused by a goring ox and comparable cases.
The majority of these offences were penalized with pecuniary fines (an amount of silver), but some serious offences such as burglary, murder, and sexual offences were penalized with death. It seems that the capital punishment was avoidable (in contrast to the Code of Hammurabi), because of the standard formulation: “It is a case of life … he shall die”.
This is an excerpt from the article Codes of Eshnunna from the Wikipedia free encyclopedia. A list of authors is available at Wikipedia.
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King David
If Hammurabi was Solomon, as we think, then Hammurabi’s father, Sin-muballit (“The god Sin is the giver of life”, but Sin was also interchangeable with El, see below), must be King David. Unfortunately we know so little about Sin-muballit.
Only scanty information exists about [Hammurabi’s] immediate family: his father, Sin-muballit; his sister, Iltani; and his firstborn son and successor, Samsuiluna, are known by name. [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/545565/Sin-muballit].
A second synchronism (already referred to) between the First Dynasty of Babylon and Larsa is provided in a historical record from the reign of Hammurabi’s father, Sin-muballit. Sin-muballit attacked Isin and reduced it to submission in his year 16, which was year 22 of Damiq-ilishu …. . This event became the year name of Sin-muballit’s succeeding year. (“Orientalia”, series 2, no. 24, “Chronological Notes,” by H. Levy.)
In Sin-Muballit’s 13th year, he repelled the army of Ur, which had invaded the territory of Babylon. In the 17th year of his reign, Sin-Muballit took possession of the city of Isin and his power grew steadily over time as evidenced by his building and fortifying a number of fortresses.[3]
Sin-muballit must have an alter ego, or several.
We would like to propose that Sin-muballit was also the contemporaneous Naram Sin (“Beloved of Sin”) of Eshnunna, whom Marc van de Mieroop (A History of the Ancient Near East, C. 3000-323 BC (2003) Blackwell, Oxford. ISBN 0-631-22552-8) places right alongside a Dadusha (now there is a David name!) in his king list. I take this Dadusha of Eshnunna to be Naram Sin/David also. Naram Sin was, like David (meaning “Beloved”), a beloved of God. He was also a foe of Shamsi-Adad I (the biblical Hadadezer).
When Assyria was conquered by Naram-Sin, king of Eshnunna, Ila-Kabkaba’s son (or descendant), Shamshi-Adad, fled to Babylon.
We take the mighty Naram Sim of Eshnunna to be King David, the father of Solomon/Hammurabi, and the same as Sin-muballit and Dadusha, a man beloved of God.
Regarding the meaning of the “fully Akkadian” name of Hammurabi’s father, Sin-muballit [660], we find that it meant, “The god Sin is the giver of life”. Now, since the Aramaeans are known to have equated their god, El, with the name Sin, then this, king David’s Akkadian name, as we are proposing, could just as well have meant “God is the giver of life”. This would be a most appropriate appellation for king David, who would write, in Psalm 21:4: “[The king, David] asked you for life; you gave it to him – length of days forever and ever.”
