God's Weights in a Postmodern Bag Text: Proverbs 16:11
Introduction: The War on Reality
We live in an age that is at war with objective reality. Our culture has declared that truth is a personal preference, that morality is a social construct, and that a man can become a woman if he feels like it. This is not just a departure from Christian morality; it is a departure from sanity. It is an attempt to live in a world without definitions, without standards, without a fixed point of reference. They want to weigh everything on scales of their own making, using weights they've carved themselves out of feelings and grievances. The result is a society that is coming apart at the seams, because a world without objective standards is a world of chaos. It is tohu wa-bohu all over again.
Into this relativistic confusion, the book of Proverbs speaks with the force of a thunderclap. And this particular proverb, Proverbs 16:11, is a direct assault on the entire postmodern project. It tells us that the standards for justice, for fairness, for honesty, are not ours to invent. They are not relative. They are not culturally conditioned. They are God's. He owns the scales. He made the weights. This is not just about ancient marketplace ethics; this is about the fundamental nature of reality. God is the one who defines what is true, what is just, and what is real. Every transaction, whether it is in the marketplace, the courtroom, the classroom, or the bedroom, is ultimately measured by His unchanging standard.
Our secularists want to have a just society, but they want to do it without God. They want fair outcomes, but they reject the only possible source of fairness. This is like wanting to measure a pound of flour without an objective standard for what a pound is. One man's pound is another man's pound and a half. The result is not justice; it is theft. It is the powerful imposing their "truth" on the weak. And that is precisely where our culture is headed. But the Word of God stands against this. It tells us that the grammar of justice is not written by man; it is the work of God.
The Text
A just balance and scales belong to Yahweh;
All the weights of the bag are His work.
(Proverbs 16:11 LSB)
The Divine Standard (v. 11a)
The first clause of this verse establishes the origin of all true justice.
"A just balance and scales belong to Yahweh..." (Proverbs 16:11a)
Notice the possessive. The scales are not simply approved by Yahweh, or recommended by Yahweh. They belong to Him. He owns them. This means that the very concept of justice, of a fair and impartial standard, is God's property. It originates in His character. God is not subject to some abstract standard of justice that exists outside of Himself. He is the standard. His nature is the ultimate plumb line for all righteousness.
In the ancient world, this was a direct polemic against paganism. The gods of the Canaanites and Babylonians were capricious, petty, and unjust. They could be bribed and manipulated. There was no ultimate standard. Justice was simply the will of the stronger god. But the God of the Bible, Yahweh, is different. He is a God of covenant faithfulness, of unchanging righteousness. Therefore, His people are to reflect His character in all their dealings.
This is why the law given to Israel was so concerned with economic justice. Leviticus 19 says, "You shall do no injustice in judgment, in measurement of length, weight, or volume. You shall have honest scales, honest weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin: I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt" (Lev. 19:35-36). Notice the connection. Their deliverance from the injustice of Egypt was the basis for their own commitment to justice. Because God had been just to them, they were to be just to one another. Our ethics are grounded in our redemption.
For us today, this means that all our talk of "social justice" is meaningless if it is not grounded in the justice of God revealed in Scripture. You cannot have justice without a transcendent standard. If you try, all you are left with is a power struggle. One group's "justice" is another group's oppression. The only way out of that endless conflict is to acknowledge that the scales belong to God, not to us.
The Divine Manufacture (v. 11b)
The second clause reinforces and expands on the first, leaving no room for ambiguity.
"...All the weights of the bag are His work." (Proverbs 16:11b)
This is even more specific. It is not just the concept of the scales that belongs to God, but the very instruments of measurement are His creation. In those days, a merchant would carry a bag of stones, each one a standardized weight. This proverb says that God is the one who manufactured those stones. He is the one who determined what a shekel weighs. He is the ultimate Bureau of Weights and Measures.
This is a profound statement about the sovereignty of God over the material world. Our secular age wants to divide the world into two realms: the sacred (church, prayer, personal devotion) and the secular (business, science, politics). The Bible knows nothing of this distinction. God is Lord over all of it. He is just as concerned with the honesty of a business transaction as He is with the purity of our worship, because honest business is a form of worship. It is acknowledging His ownership and His standards in the so-called "secular" realm.
When a Christian businessman uses honest weights, he is making a theological statement. He is declaring that Yahweh is God, even here in the marketplace. He is confessing that reality is what God says it is, not what he can get away with. A false weight is not just theft; it is idolatry. It is an attempt to create your own reality, to be your own god, to declare that your standards are higher than God's. This is why God calls it an "abomination" (Proverbs 11:1; 20:23). It is a direct attack on His created order and His very character.
This principle extends far beyond literal weights and measures. It applies to every area where a standard is required. It applies to a fair day's work for a fair day's wage. It applies to the grading of papers in a classroom. It applies to the reporting of news. It applies to the promises made in a marriage vow. In every one of these areas, God has established the standard. The weights are His work, and we are not at liberty to tamper with them.
The Gospel Weigh-In
So, how should we respond to this? The first response should be conviction. If we are honest, we have all used false weights. We have all tried to tip the scales in our own favor. We have cut corners at work. We have exaggerated our accomplishments. We have shaded the truth to our own advantage. We have judged others by a different standard than we judge ourselves. In short, we are all thieves. We have all committed this abomination before a holy God.
If we were to be weighed on God's perfect scales, we would all be found wanting. The prophet Daniel said it to Belshazzar: "You have been weighed in the balances and found deficient" (Daniel 5:27). That is the verdict on every one of us, apart from Christ.
But this is where the glory of the gospel shines. God, in His infinite justice, knew that we could never balance the scales. The debt of our sin was too great. So He did something astounding. He sent His own Son, Jesus Christ, to be weighed in our place. On the cross, the full weight of our sin, all of our cheating and lying and theft, was placed upon Him. And the full weight of God's perfect righteousness was credited to our account. This is the great exchange. He took our deficit, and we received His perfect score.
Paul puts it this way: "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Corinthians 5:21). Christ satisfied the demands of God's perfect scales. Justice was not set aside; it was fulfilled.
Therefore, the Christian life is not about trying to balance the scales through our own efforts. It is about living in grateful obedience to the one who balanced them for us. Because we have been treated with such perfect justice and mercy in Christ, we are now free and empowered to deal justly and mercifully with others. We use honest weights not in order to be saved, but because we have been saved. Our integrity in the marketplace is a testimony to the integrity of the God who has redeemed us. It is a way of showing the world that our God is not a liar, that His standards are true, and that His grace can make a thief into an honest man.