DECENT ORIENTAL DISCOVERIES ON OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. 159 



which a man was taking two wives, one of whom was to liold 

 iin inferior position to the other, wrote as follows : — 



" In the matter of Sarai, Abraham's wife, giving her handmaid 

 Hagar to Abraham as a second, or inferior wife, because she had no 

 children herself, it is not improbable that we have a record of what 

 was a common custom at the time." p. 236. (The italics are mine.) 



The first edition of Dr. Pinches' book came out in 1902, and 

 in January of that very year that wonderful document of the 

 ■days of Amraphel, King of Shinar, known as the Code of 

 King Hammurabi was discovered ; it was published in the 

 autumn of tbe same year. And the surmise of Dr. Pinches 

 that what Sarai, Kachel and Leah are recorded to have done 

 " was a common custom of the time " w^as shown to be 

 perfectly correct. When the second edition of his work came 

 out in 1903 Dr. Pinches was able in the appendix to publish 

 the text of the Code of Hammurabi, that great king who reigned 

 o\'er Babylonia in the days of Abraham. 



And the Code contains the followiug enactments : — 



(144.) "If a man has married a wife, and that wife has given a 

 maid-servani to her husband, etc. 



(146.) " If a man has married a wife and 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 maicl- 

 .servants." 



"has given a maid-servant to her husband." (The Code.) 



" Sarai . . . took Hagar her maid and gave her to her 

 husband Abraham to be his wife." (Genesis.) 



What a close parallel ! 

 And again, 



"afterwards that maid-servant make herself equal with her 

 mistress as she has borne children." (The Code.) 

 " and when she saw that she had conceived her mistress was despised 

 in her eyes." (Genesis.) 



In his notes on these enactments Dr. Pinches writes, 



"Reference has already been made . . . to the contracts of 

 the period of Hammurabi's Dynasty, which illustrate the matter of 

 Sarah giving Hagar to Abraham because she herself was childless 

 (Gen. xvi, 1, 2). That this was the custom in Babylonia is now 

 •confirmed bylaw 144." Oj?. cit., p. 524. 



He goes on to say : — 



