Source of Law in the Biblical 333 law, the king, or a wronged citizen empowered by him, possesses the authority to fix the sanctions for sexual offenders, and to change them or decline to apply them altogether. 4. Legal and practical consequences of differences in the source of law a) Homicide As noted above, homicide affects the Deity in addition to the injured human party. A number of specific comparisons will illustrate the consequences of this distinct credo. i. Talion versus Composition for the Taking of Life In the early laws of Ur-Namma, a homicide is punished by death, and in the extant tablets there is no provision for pecuniary composition for this crime. In the Hammurapi laws, there is no explicit sanction for a premeditated murder, nor mention of composition for such an act (45); there is, however, a rule that decrees capital punishment for causing death of an awilu woman, and composition for the same act committed against a woman of the commoner class. In MAL A 10 and B 2, the family of a murdered person can choose whether to kill the murderer or receive composition. The Hittite codex, section 1, goes a step further; there is no capital punishment, but only composition. Biblical law, in contrast, never permits the commutation of capital punishment for murder. The express prohibition against monetary payment for death appears only in Num 35,31; there is nonetheless no provision in the Book of the Covenant for allowing such commutation. Exod 21,12 unequivocally requires a death for a death, and this mandatory punishment is bolstered in the subsequent v. 14. There is absolutely no relief for a murderer, and God’s sanctuary does not grant him safe haven (46). (45) LH 229-230 decree capital punishment for death caused by the collapse of a house negligently built, if the deceased is the householder or his son (while a slave is replaced with a slave of equal value); we must assume that the same sanction would apply for an intentional murder. (46) The decree in Exod 21,22, that a father, or the court, can establish the amount of composition for the loss of a fetus, is not a contradiction of the mandatory death sentence for killing a person. In biblical law, as understood by the sages (in contrast to Qumran scholars), a fetus is not a living person and its loss is perceived as financial damage, whose redress remains within the domain of humans. See mHul 4,5 and mAr 1,4; and HEGER, The Pluralistic Halakhah, 381-383.