Biblical laws concerning personal status may relate to individuals as members of larger segments of society (slaves, poor, aliens, women), or they may govern relations between persons in a household, as in laws governing the treatment of slaves, and those stipulating the relations between members of the family. These categories are followed in the discussion below.

Personal Status

One of the essential characteristics of Israelite law is that there are no legally defined social classes among free Israelites. This contrasts with the laws of Hammurabi, which assume two classes of free men, the awilum ("man," the higher class) and the mushkenum (a poorer class, perhaps only partially free, partially in royal service), with notable differences in the treatment of each, as, for example, in the prescription of penalties for assault by a member of one group against a member of...