Posted by Jeff (24.30.53.181) on November 22, 2001 at 00:22:34:
My name is Hammurabi, Law Giver
and I speak to you, my people
in the beloved land of the two rivers,
I speak to you across the centuries.
I, Hammurabi who gave the law to my people in order that the strong
should not oppress the weak
and that the widows and orphans
should be rightly protected,
I speak to you in your hour of need
in an hour when this beloved land
is oppressed from afar by the strong
who lay-siege to it like a city
who cause the water channels to dry up
who make the farmer's land into a desert
who bring great hunger and starvation
who bring disease and death to our children.
This, while many of the people
in the lands of the strong,
in the lands of your oppressors,
know-not what they do,
and many who know, care-not;
I speak to you, beloved people
in this hour of pain and sorrow
and I say to you:
Be comforted.
For did I not set out in this land
the words of the law?
and did I not cause this law to be written
on pillars of hard stone for all to see, in many places?
and did this law not grow from the ancient customs
and the wisdom of village, town and city?
and did this law not bring justice and peace
to our beloved land of the two rivers
so that water flowed in all the channels
so that our fields rippled with grain
and so there was laughter and song in the villages?
And through these many centuries
has the law not spread to all lands?
Even to the lands of your oppressors?
And is it not written and set out there,
for all to see in many places?
And do the laws of your oppressors
permit and allow the strong
to oppress the weak?
And do they fail to protect
the widows, the orphans and the little children?
So I say to you: Be comforted.
For though your oppressors are strong
and come against you with great weapons of thunder
yet their purposes are small
and they have no vision,
and those who do not obey their own laws
shall come to nothing.
For the centuries are full
of those who brought fire and destruction
of those who did not follow the law
and those who lacked wisdom:
the stiff-necked, the haughty,
the cruel and the greedy,
and the nations that they led
have vanished and their names
have become a curse
in the mouth of mankind.
For the law is more enduring
even than hard stone
and the nations that have no law
and the nations that mock their own laws
come quickly to an end.
So your oppressors shall not endure
they will crumble and blow away like dust;
like a house of mud in the desert wind
they will vanish and be gone.
By: David Morgan