THE KING’S BUSINESS
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UNDER THE LAW. In the words, then, which Abram used, “Behold thy maid is in thy hand, do to her as it pleaseth thee,” Abram was only conceding to Sarai what was her absolute right by Babylonian law, under this section of the Code of Ham murabi! But on a later occasion at the feast, when Isaac was weaned, Sarah saw Ishmael mocking and demanded that the .bond-wOman and her son should be cast put,'using the words, “Cast out the bond-woman and her son, for the son of this bond-woman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac,” Abraham would seem to have de murred, and we read, “the thing was very grievous in his sight because of his son.” . We can now see why, apart from his natural affection for Ishmael, the thing should seem to Abraham “very griev ous . . . because of his son,” for that which Sarah called upon him to do would be a distinct breach of a certain enactment of the Code of Hammurabi. Abraham had acknowledged Ishmael as his son, and the section of the Code which applied to his case was this: “ (170) If a man his wife h'as borne him sons, and his maid-servant have borne him sons, the father have said tc the sons which the maid-servant has borne him, ‘my sons,’ has numbered them with the sons of his wife; after the father has gone to his fate the sons of the maid-servant shall share equally in the goods of the father’s house, the sons that are sons of the wife at the sharing shall choose and take.” Thus we can see that Sarah when she said, “the son of this bond-woman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac,” had evidently the con sciousness of this law before her, and was insisting that in the case of,her son Isaac, the child of promise, this every day law should be discarded and set at
What they did was a Babylonian cus tom. Sarai according to the narrative in Genesis came from Ur in the Chal dees, in the very heart of Babylonia, and Rachel and Leah’s home had been in Haran in Mesopotamia, a place in which Babylonian customs and ideas reigned supreme. The Code of Hammurabi, King of Babylonia c. 2000 B. C.,'contains the following enactments: “ (145) If a man has married a wife,; and that wife has given a maidrservant to her husband,” etc. “ (146) I f a man has married a wife, and that she has given a maid-servant to her husband, and (the maid-servant) has borne children; (if) afterwards that maid-servant make herself equal with her mistress as she has borne children, her mistress shall not sell her for silver—she shall place a mark upon her, and. count her with the maid-ser vants.” “Has given a maid-servant to her husband,” says the Babylonian Code. “Sarai . . . took Hagar her maid . . . and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife,” we read in Genesis. How close a parallel! And again: “Afterwards that maid servant make herself equal to her mis tress as she has borne children,” (The Code) “and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes” (Genesis). Remarking on this, Dr. Pinches writes: “Hagar despising her mistress (Gen. xvi, 4) is illustrated by law 146, which allows the mistress to reduce her to the position of a slave again, which was agreed to by the patriarch, the result being that Hagar fled.”— The Old Testament, in the light of the historical records of Assyria and Baby lonia, p. 524.
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