Clean Slate debt cancellations (the Jubilee Year), used in Babylonia since Hammurabi’s dynasty, first appear in the Bible in Leviticus 25. Jesus’s first sermon announced that he had come to proclaim it. This message – more than other religious claims – is what threatened his enemies, and why he was put to death.
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Tig ,in no way does Hammurabi’s code prove to be an ancestor of the Mosaic Law. For example, there existed in Hammurabi’s code a “sympathetic” punishment. One of the rules states: “If [a builder] has caused the son of the owner of the house to die [because the house is faulty and collapses], one shall put to death the son of that builder.” God’s law through Moses, to the contrary, stated:“Fathers should not be put to death for what their children do, and children should not be put to death for what their fathers do. A person should be put to death only for his own sin.'' (Deuteronomy 24:16) The penalty for theft of valuables was generally not restitution, as in the Mosaic Law, but death.
In the first century C.E., the relationship of creditors and debtors was very familiar to the Jews, and Jesus at times drew on this for his illustrations. He emphasized the need to be forgiving by telling about a wicked slave who, although having been released from a 60,000,000-denarius (c. $40,000,000) debt, had a fellow slave thrown into prison for a 100-denarius (c. $70) debt.
In the Scriptures, the words “debt” and “debtor” are also used with reference to obligations other than those accrued by borrowing. The wage due a worker is counted as a “debt.” (Romans 4:4) Sinners are “debtors” to those against whom they have transgressed and therefore must seek their forgiveness. God’s forgiveness of “debts” depends on whether a person has forgiven his personal “debtors.” (Matt 6:12, 14, 15; Luke 13:4) In view of his obligation to preach “the good news,” the apostle Paul spoke of himself as a “debtor” to all persons. (Romans 1:14, 15)
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