This inscription contains the only mention of Israel in a document of this age outside the Bible. It is, for that reason, of great importance. It should be noted that Israel is mentioned along with peoples and places in Palestine and Phœnicia. The Israel here referred to was not, accordingly, in Egypt. Israel, on the other hand, may not have been more than a nomadic people. The Egyptians used a certain “determinative” in connection with the names of settled peoples. That sign is here used with Tehenu, Kheta, Askelon, Gezer, and Yenoam, but not with Israel. As Merneptah has been supposed by many to be the Pharaoh in whose reign the exodus occurred, the mention of Israel here has somewhat puzzled scholars, and different explanations of the fact have arisen. At least one scholar holds that the exodus occurred in Merneptah’s third year, and that he afterward attacked the Hebrews. Others have supposed that not all the Hebrews had been in Egypt, but only the Joseph tribes. Still others have thought that the Leah tribes had made their exodus during the eighteenth dynasty, and that it was these with whom Merneptah fought, while the Rachel tribes made their exodus under the nineteenth dynasty. Opinions vary according to the critical views of different writers. All scholars would welcome more information on these problems. CHAPTER XIII THE CODE OF HAMMURAPI AND THE PENTATEUCH THE TEXT OF THE CODE; RESEMBLANCE TO AND CONTRAST WITH THE MOSAIC CODE. THE MOSAIC CODE NOT BORROWED FROM THE BABYLONIAN; DIFFERENT UNDERLYING CONCEPTIONS. =1. The Text of the Code; Comparison with the Mosaic Code.= The following code of laws was inscribed by order of Hammurapi, of the first dynasty of Babylon (2104-2061 B. C.), on a block of black diorite nearly eight feet in height and set up in Esagila, the temple of Marduk, in Babylon, so that the people might have the laws in the mother-tongue. As this last statement implies, the laws are written in Semitic Babylonian; before the time of Hammurapi the laws had been written in Sumerian. At some later time an Elamite conqueror, who was overrunning Babylonia, took this pillar away to Susa as a trophy. In course of time the pillar was broken into three parts, which were found by the French expedition under de Morgan in December, 1901, and January, 1902, while excavating at Susa. As the code is the oldest known code of laws in the world, being a thousand years older than Moses, and as it affords some interesting peculiarities as well as some striking parallels to the laws in Exodus 21-23 and in Deuteronomy, a translation of it, with some comparison of Exodus and Deuteronomy, is here given: Against Witches § 1. If a man brings an accusation against a man, that he has laid a death-spell upon him, and has not proved it, the accuser shall be put to death.[459]