§ 248. If a man hires an ox and breaks off its horn, or cuts off its tail or injures the flesh which holds the ring, money to ¼ of its value he shall pay. § 249. If a man hires an ox and a god strikes it and it dies, the man who hires the ox shall take an oath in the presence of a god and shall go free. § 250. If an ox when passing along the street gores a man and causes his death, there is no penalty in that case. § 251. If the ox of a man has the habit of goring and they have informed him of his fault and his horns he has not protected nor kept his ox in, and that ox gores a man and causes his death, the owner of the ox shall pay ½ mana of money. § 252. If it is the slave of a man, he shall pay ⅓ of a mana of money. § 253. If a man hires a man and puts him over his field and furnishes him with seed-grain and intrusts him with oxen and contracts with him to cultivate the field, if that man steals the seed-grain or the crop and it is found in his possession, they shall cut off his hands. § 254. If he takes the seed-grain, but enfeebles the cattle, from the grain which he has cultivated he shall make restoration. § 255. If he shall let the cattle to a man for hire, or steal the seed-grain so that there is no crop, they shall prosecute that man, and he shall pay 60 _Gur_ of grain for each _Gan_. § 256. If he is not able to meet his obligation, they shall tear him in pieces in that field by means of the oxen. The Biblical legislation corresponding to this is found in Exod. 21:28-35, but it covers only a portion of the cases of which the Babylonian law treats. It provides that, if an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned. If the ox was wont to gore and the owner had not kept it in, but it had been permitted to kill a man or a woman, the owner as well as the ox should be stoned. At the discretion of the tribunal a fine or ransom might be laid on the owner. In case the ox gored a slave, the owner of the ox was to pay 30 shekels of silver and the ox was to be stoned. If a man opened a pit and a neighbor’s ox or ass fell into it, the digger of the pit must make good the loss to the owner of the animal, and the dead beast became the property of the digger of the pit. If one man’s ox killed the ox of another man, the two men were to sell the live ox and divide the price. If it were known that the ox was wont to gore in the past, and its owner had not kept it in, he was to pay ox for ox, and the dead animal should be his. It thus appears that the exigencies of Hebrew agricultural life were different from those of Babylonia, and were naturally met in different ways. Wages of Laborers § 257. If a man hires a field-laborer, he shall pay him 8 _Gur_ of grain per year. § 258. If a man hires a herdsman, he shall pay him 6 _Gur_ of grain per year. Hebrew law did not regulate wages. On Stealing Farming-tools