These laws have no parallel in the Bible. Among the agricultural population of Palestine builders were not a separate class. The penalties inflicted by the Babylonian code were severe, and yet, if modern legislators would put upon the house-builders of our time a similar responsibility for good work, fewer lives would be sacrificed by falling buildings. Responsibility of Boatmen § 234. If a boatman builds a boat of 60 _Gur_ for a man, he shall give him 2 shekels of silver as his wages. § 235. If a boatman builds a boat for a man and does not make his work sound and in that year the boat is sent on a voyage and meets with disaster, that boatman shall repair that boat and from his own goods shall make it strong and shall give the boat in sound condition to the owner of the boat. § 236. If a man gives his boat to a boatman for hire and the boatman is careless and sinks or wrecks the boat, the boatman shall restore a boat to the owner of the boat. § 237. If a man hires a boatman and a boat and loads it with grain, wool, oil, dates, or any other kind of freight, and that boatman is careless and sinks the boat or destroys its freight, the boatman shall replace the boat and whatever there was in it which he destroyed. § 238. If a boatman sinks a man’s boat and re-floats it, he shall give money for ½ its value. § 239. If a man hires a boatman, he shall give him 6 _Gur_ of grain a year. The Hebrews were not a maritime people, and had no such laws as these or the following. The Collision of Ships § 240. If a boat that is floating downstream strikes a boat that is being towed and sinks it, the owner of the boat that was sunk shall declare in the presence of a god everything that was in that boat and [the owner] of the boat floating downstream, which sunk the boat that was being towed, shall replace the boat and whatever was lost. There is, naturally, nothing similar to this in the Old Testament. Laws Concerning Cattle § 241. If a man levies a distraint upon an ox as security for debt, he shall pay ⅓ of a mana of silver. § 242. If a man hires for a year, the wages of a working ox is 4 _Gur_ of grain. § 243. The hire of a milch cow, 3 _Gur_ of grain for a year he shall give. § 244. If a man hires an ox or an ass and a lion kills it in the field, the loss falls on the owner. § 245. If a man hires an ox and causes its death through neglect or blows, he shall restore to the owner an ox of equal value. § 246. If a man hires an ox and crushes its foot or cuts the cord of its neck, he shall restore to the owner an ox of like value. § 247. If a man hires an ox and destroys its eye, he shall pay to the owner of the ox money to ½ its value.