§ 2. If a man accuses another of practising sorcery upon him, but has not proved it, he against whom the charge of sorcery is made shall go to the sacred river; into the sacred river he shall plunge, and if the sacred river overpowers him, his accuser shall take possession of his house. If the sacred river shows that man to be innocent, and he is unharmed, he who charged him with sorcery shall be killed. He who plunged into the sacred river shall take the house of his accuser. With these laws we should compare Exod. 22:18, which imposes the death penalty upon witches, and Deut. 18:10, ff., which declares that there shall be no sorcerer, diviner, magician, or charmer in Israel and promises a line of prophets to render these unnecessary. Magic is banished from Israel; its presence in Babylonia is taken for granted, and only some of its exercises, which were supposed to be especially deadly, were forbidden. In § 2 the man accused of sorcery is to be tried by ordeal. He is to plunge into the river and if he can swim in its current, he is innocent. Trial by ordeal is found but once in the Hebrew laws (Num. 5:11-28). There both the crime and the ordeal are very different from this. Note that in these sections the false accuser suffers in just the way he has tried to bring suffering to the other. This is the law of retaliation, which appears in Deut. 19:16-21, where it is applied to false witnesses in the same way as here. It will be found underlying many of the penalties of this code. Laws Concerning False Witness § 3. If in a case a man has borne false witness, or accused a man without proving it, if that case is a capital case, that man shall be put to death. § 4. If he has borne witness in a case of grain or money, the penalty of that case he shall himself bear. Hebrew law was similar; a false witness was to be visited with the penalty which he had purposed to bring upon his brother (Deut. 19:18, 19). Against Reversing a Judicial Decision § 5. If a judge has pronounced a judgment, made a decision, caused it to be sealed, and afterward has altered his judgment, that judge they shall convict on account of the case which he decided and altered; the penalty which in that case he imposed he shall pay twelvefold, and in the assembly from the seat of his judgment they shall expel him; he shall not return; with the judges in a case he shall not sit. Hebrew law presents no parallel to this. Against Theft § 6. If a man steals the goods of a god (temple) or of a palace, that man shall be put to death, and he by whose hand the stolen goods were received shall be put to death. § 7. If a man purchases or receives on deposit either silver, gold, man-servant, maid-servant, ox, sheep, ass, or anything whatever from the hand of a minor or a slave without witnesses or contracts, that man is a thief; he shall be put to death.