The Old Testament In the Light of The Historical Records and Legends Part 44

37. If a man buy the field, plantation, or house of an army-officer, soldier, or tax-payer, his contract shall be broken, and he shall forfeit his money. The field, plantation, or house shall return to its owner.

38. Army-officer, soldier, or tax-payer shall not leave to his wife or his daughter (anything) from the field, plantation, and house of his administration, and shall not give them for his indebtedness.

39. He may leave to his wife and his daughter (any part) of the field, plantation, or house which he has bought and owns, and may give it for his indebtedness.

40. But to an agent or other official, he may give his field, his plantation, or his house for silver, (and) the purchaser shall carry on the administration of the field, plantation, and house which he has bought.

41. If a man has enclosed the field, plantation, or house of an army-officer, soldier, or tax-payer, and given subst.i.tutes, the army-officer, soldier, or tax-payer may return to his field, plantation, or house, and take the subst.i.tutes which have been given to him.

42. If a man has hired a field for cultivation, and has not caused wheat to be in that field, they shall summon him for not having done work in the field, and he shall give to the owner of the field wheat like his neighbour.

43. If he has not planted the field, and has let it lie, he shall give to the owner of the field wheat like his neighbour, and the field which he has let lie he shall break up for cultivation, shall enclose (it) and return (it) to the owner of the field.

44. If a man has hired an uncultivated field for cultivation(184) for three years, and he has been idle and has not cultivated the field, in the fourth year he shall break up the field for cultivation, shall hoe (it), and shall enclose (it) and return (it) to the owner of the field, and for every 10 _gan_ he shall measure (to him) 10 _gur_ of wheat.

45. If a man has given his field for rent to a planter, and has received the rent of his field, and afterwards a storm(185) has inundated the field, or has (otherwise) destroyed the produce, the loss belongs to the planter.

46. If he have not received the rent of his field, and has let the field for a half or a third (of the produce), the planter and the owner of the field shall share the wheat which has been produced in the field proportionately.

47. If the planter, because his husbandry did not yield profit(186) in the first year, direct the field to be cultivated (by another), the owner of the field shall not object. The planter then shall cultivate his field, and shall take the wheat at harvest-time, according to his contract.

48. If there be interest (upon a loan) against a man, and a storm(187) inundate his field, or has (otherwise) destroyed the produce, or by want of water there is no wheat in the field, that year he shall not return any wheat to the creditor.(188) He shall damp his tablet (? to alter it), and shall not pay interest(189) for that year.

49. If a man has borrowed money from an agent, and has given to the agent a field laboured for wheat or sesame, (and) has said to him: "Plant the field, and gather and take the wheat or the sesame which will be produced;" if the planter has caused wheat or sesame to be in the field, at harvest-time the owner of the field may take the wheat or sesame which has been produced in the field, and shall give to the agent wheat for his silver and his interest(190) which he received from the agent, and (for) the cost of the cultivation.

50. If he has given (as security) a planted field, or a field planted with sesame, the owner of the field shall take the wheat or sesame which is produced in the field, and shall return the silver and its interest to the agent.

51. If there be no silver (wherewith) to repay, he shall give to the agent sesame at their market-price for his silver and his interest, which he received from the agent, according to the tariff of the king.

52. If the planter has not caused wheat or sesame to be in the field, it does not annul his contract.

53. If a man has neglected to stren[gth]en his [d.y.k.e], and has not streng[thened his] d.y.k.e, [and] a breach has o[pened] in [his] d.y.k.e, and water has inundated the enclosure, the man in whose d.y.k.e the breach has been opened shall make good the wheat which it has destroyed.

54. If the wheat does not suffice to make good (the damage), they shall sell that (man) and his goods for silver, and the people(191) of the enclosure, whose wheat the water carried away, shall share together.

55. If a man has opened his irrigation-channel to water, (and) has been negligent, and the water has flooded the field of his neighbour, he shall measure (to him) wheat like(192) (that of) his neighbour.

56. If a man has opened the water, and the water flood the work of the field of his neighbour, he shall measure (to him) 10 _gur_ of wheat for each 10 _gan_.

57. If a shepherd has not agreed with the owner of a field for gra.s.s to pasture his sheep, and without the owner of the field has pastured sheep (in) the field, the owner shall reap _his_ fields; the shepherd who, without the owner of the field, pastured sheep (in) the field, shall pay to the owner of the field 20 _gur_ of wheat for every 10 _gan_ besides.

58. If, after the sheep have left the enclosure, (and) the whole flock has pa.s.sed through the gate, the shepherd place the sheep (again) in the field, and cause the sheep to pasture (in) the field, the shepherd shall keep the field (where) he has pastured them, and shall measure to the owner of the field, at harvest-time, 60 _gur_ of wheat for every 10 _gan_.

59. If a man, without (the permission of) the owner of a plantation, has cut down a tree in the plantation of a man, he shall pay half a mana of silver.

60. If a man has given a field to a gardener to plant as a plantation, (and) the gardener has planted the plantation, he shall tend the plantation for four years. In the fifth year the owner of the plantation and the gardener shall share equally; (thereafter) the owner of the plantation shall apportion and take his share.

61. If a gardener has not completed the plantation of a field, and has left an uncultivated place, they shall set for him the uncultivated place in his share.

62. If he has not planted the field which has been given him for a plantation, if (it be) grain, the gardener shall measure to the owner of the field the produce of the field, for the years during which it has been neglected, like his neighbour; and he shall do the work of the field, and return (it) to the owner of the field.

63. If the field (was) waste land, he shall do the work of the field, and return (it) to the owner of the field, and he shall measure for every year 10 _gur_ of wheat for each 10 _gan_.

64. If a man has given his plantation to a gardener to cultivate, the gardener, as long as he holds the plantation, shall give two-thirds of the produce of the plantation to the owner of the plantation, (and) shall take a third himself.

65. If the gardener has not cultivated the plantation, and has diminished the produce, the gardener [shall measure to the owner of the field]

produce (like) his neighbour.

(Five columns have here been erased, apparently by the Elamite king who intended to inscribe his name upon the monument. Prof. Scheil estimates that this contained about 35 sections of the laws, containing the remaining sections referring to the cultivation of plantations or orchards, the letting of houses, and the laws relating to commercial transactions, of which a portion is preserved after the gap. As pointed out by Prof. Scheil, the following sections, from fragments of tablets found at Nineveh by Hormuzd Ra.s.sam and the late Geo. Smith, probably came in here.)

[If a man has borrowed silver from an agent, and has given] to the agent [a date-orchard, and] has said to him: "Take for thy money the dates, [as much as] will be produced in [my] orchard, for thy money;" (if) that agent be not in agreement, the owner of the orchard shall take the dates which are produced in the orchard, and return to the agent the silver and its interest, according to his tablet; and the owner of the orchard may ta[ke]

the surplus dates which have been produced in the orchard.

[If a man has hired a house, and] the man has paid to the owner of [the house] the complete money for his rent for a year, [and] the owner of the house, before the days are full, command the ten[ant] to go [forth],-the owner of the house, [as] he sends the tenant [forth] from his house before the time,(193) [shall return to the tenant a proportionate sum, for having gone forth from his house], from the money which the tenant has pai[d to him].

[If a man] owe (?) wheat (or) silver, and has not wheat or silver [wherewith] to [pay], but possess (other) goods, whatever is in his hands he shall gi[ve] to the agent, before witnesses, as profit, [and] the agent shall not f[ind fault], and shall ac[cept it].

(Portions of other laws are also preserved, but they are too fragmentary to enable the sense to be gathered.)

100. [If an agent has advanced silver to a commissioner, and he has had good fortune in the place to which he went], he shall write down the profits of his silver, as much as he has received, and the day when they make up their accounts he shall pay (it) to his agent.

101. If he found no profit where he went, he shall make up the silver which he took, and the commissioner shall repay it to the agent.(194)

102. If an agent has advanced silver to a commissioner for profit, and he found loss where he went, he shall return the capital of the silver to the agent.

103. If, whilst going on his way, an enemy caused him to lose what he was carrying, the commissioner shall call G.o.d to witness(195) and shall go free.

104. If an agent has given to a commissioner grain, wool, oil, or any other goods for trading, the commissioner shall write down the silver (received), and shall return it to the agent. The commissioner shall take a sealed doc.u.ment of the silver which he gives to the agent.(196)

105. If the commissioner has been negligent, and has not taken a sealed doc.u.ment of the silver which he has given to the agent, the silver not certified shall not be placed in the business.(197)

106. If a commissioner has taken silver from an agent, and dispute (withhold it from) his agent, that agent shall summon the commissioner before G.o.d and the witnesses concerning the money taken; the commissioner shall repay to the agent the silver, as much as he has taken, threefold.

107. If an agent act unjustly to a commissioner, and the commissioner has returned to the agent everything which the agent had given to him, (and) the agent dispute with the commissioner (concerning) anything which the commissioner has repaid to him, that commissioner shall summon the agent before G.o.d and the witnesses, and the agent, for having disputed (with) his commissioner, anything which he has received he shall repay to the commissioner sixfold.

108. If a wine-woman has not accepted wheat as the price of drink, (but) has accepted silver by the large stone, or has set the tariff of the drink below the tariff of the wheat, they shall summon that wine-woman, and shall throw her into the water.

109. If a wine-woman, (when) riotous fellows are a.s.sembled at her house, does not seize those riotous fellows and take them to the palace, that wine-woman shall be killed.

110. If a devotee who dwells not in a cloister open a wine-house, or enter a wine-house for drink, that female they shall burn.

111. If a wine-woman has given 60 _qa_ of second (?) quality drink, for thirst, she shall take 50 _qa_ of corn at harvest-time.

112. If a man is travelling,(198) and has given to (another) man silver, gold, (precious) stones, and his other property(199) and has caused him to take them for delivery, (and) that man has not delivered what he was to transmit at the place to which he was to transmit (it), and has taken it away, the owner of the consignment shall summon that man for anything which he took and did not deliver, and that man shall give (back) to the owner of the consignment fivefold anything which had been given to him.

113. If a man have (an account of) wheat or silver against a man, and without the owner of the wheat has taken wheat from the barn or the depository, they shall summon that man, for having taking wheat, without the owner of the wheat, from the barn or depository, and he shall return the wheat, as much as he took, and he shall forfeit whatever it may be, as much as he lent.(200)

114. If a man have no (account of) wheat or silver against a man, and make his distraint, for every distraint he shall pay one-third of a mana of silver.