God's War on Crooked Scales Text: Proverbs 20:23
Introduction: The Theology of the Marketplace
We live in an age that desperately wants to keep God in a box. He is welcome in the church building on Sunday morning, for about an hour, and perhaps He can have a quiet corner in the home for private devotions. But He is most certainly not welcome in the halls of government, the classrooms of our schools, or the floor of the stock exchange. The modern world has posted a large "No Trespassing" sign for God at the entrance to the marketplace. Business, we are told, is a secular affair, governed by neutral principles of supply and demand, profit and loss. Religion is about saving souls; economics is about making money. And never the twain shall meet.
This is a lie from the pit of Hell. It is a lie that has impoverished nations, corrupted cultures, and invited the judgment of God upon us. The God of Scripture is not a part-time deity. He is the Lord of heaven and earth, and that includes the economy. He is intensely interested in how we conduct our business, not just because it reveals our character, but because economic activity is inescapably moral. Every transaction is a theological event. Every price tag is a confession of faith. You either believe that God's standards of justice and truth apply to your business, or you believe they do not. There is no third way.
The book of Proverbs is God's boot camp for practical wisdom, and it spends a great deal of time on the subject of economics. It speaks of diligence and sloth, wealth and poverty, generosity and greed. And here, in our text, it addresses the fundamental basis of all sane economics: honest weights and measures. This is not a quaint, dusty principle for agrarian societies. This is a timeless, universal standard that strikes at the very heart of our modern, corrupt, and frankly, insane economic system.
What God says here about differing weights is not a gentle suggestion. It is a declaration of war. He does not say it is "unhelpful" or "sub-optimal." He says it is an abomination. This is one of the strongest words of condemnation in the entire Bible. It is the same word used for idolatry and sexual perversion. To cheat in business is to engage in a form of wickedness that God finds utterly detestable. We must therefore understand what this means, why God hates it so viscerally, and how this ancient principle indicts our entire modern world.
The Text
Differing weights are an abomination to Yahweh,
And a deceitful balance is not good.
(Proverbs 20:23 LSB)
An Abomination to Yahweh
Let us consider the first clause:
"Differing weights are an abomination to Yahweh..." (Proverbs 20:23a)
In the ancient world, commerce was conducted with scales. A merchant would have a set of stone weights. If you were buying a pound of grain, he would place a one-pound stone on one side of the balance and pour grain on the other until it was level. The system worked, provided the one-pound stone actually weighed one pound.
But a dishonest merchant would have two sets of stones. He would have a "buying" stone that was heavy, say 1.1 pounds, but marked as one pound. When he bought grain from a farmer, he would get more than he paid for. Then he would have a "selling" stone that was light, say 0.9 pounds, also marked as one pound. When he sold that same grain to a customer, he would give them less than they paid for. This is what the Bible means by "differing weights." It is systematic, premeditated theft, disguised as a fair transaction.
And God calls this an abomination. Why? Because it is an attack on His very nature. God is a God of truth, justice, and order. He created the world with fixed standards. A cubit is a cubit. A shekel is a shekel. Reality is objective. When a man uses differing weights, he is creating his own private, fraudulent reality. He is playing god. He is saying, "A pound is whatever I say it is." This is a metaphysical rebellion. It is a lie, and God hates all lies because He is truth, and Satan is the father of lies. This is not just bad business practice; it is idolatry. You are serving Mammon by redefining reality in order to get more of it.
Furthermore, this practice destroys the fabric of society. All peaceful, prosperous community is built on trust. When you cannot trust that the pound of flour you bought is actually a pound, or that the dollar in your pocket will hold its value tomorrow, the social order begins to disintegrate. Commerce breaks down. Suspicion replaces trust. It is every man for himself. This is why God hates it; it is an attack on the covenant community He is building in the world.
The Modern Abomination: Theft by Inflation
Now, we might be tempted to pat ourselves on the back. We have digital scales now, inspected by the government. We don't use stone weights anymore. We are sophisticated. But we have simply institutionalized the sin on a scale the ancient swindler could only dream of. The most widespread form of "differing weights" in the modern world is our fiat currency system. It is theft by inflation.
When the government, through its central bank, prints money out of thin air, it is not creating wealth. It is diluting the value of every other dollar in existence. It is a hidden tax. It is a deceitful balance. They are secretly shrinking the measuring cup. The dollar you earned yesterday buys less today, not because the goods are magically more valuable, but because the measure, the dollar itself, has been tampered with. It is a light weight.
This is a direct violation of the eighth commandment, "You shall not steal." And it is an abomination to the Lord. It is a lie. We are told it is necessary to "manage the economy," but it is simply a way for the civil magistrate to fund its profligate spending and endless wars without having to raise taxes overtly and face the wrath of the voters. It is a cowardly and dishonest way to govern. It systematically steals from the poor and those on fixed incomes, whose savings are eroded away. It punishes thrift and rewards debt. It is, in short, a wicked system, and Christians should be the first to call it what it is: an abomination.
A Deceitful Balance is Not Good
The second clause drives the point home with masterful understatement.
"And a deceitful balance is not good." (Proverbs 20:23b)
After calling the practice an abomination, the Proverb says it is "not good." This is not a lessening of the charge, but rather a different angle on it. It is not good in God's sight, which is the ultimate standard. But it is also not good in its practical outworking. It does not lead to blessing. It does not build a lasting enterprise. It does not create a stable society.
A man who builds his business on deceit may see short-term profits. But he is building on sand. He is sowing to the wind and will reap the whirlwind. He will earn a reputation for dishonesty. He will live in fear of being discovered. He will attract lawsuits. And most importantly, he will bring the curse of God upon his house. "Ill-gotten gains do not profit," Proverbs 10:2 tells us. This is not just a spiritual principle; it is a law of spiritual economics. Sin does not pay in the long run.
When an entire nation builds its economy on a deceitful balance, as we have done, it is also "not good." It leads to boom and bust cycles. It leads to economic chaos. It destroys the savings of generations. It fosters a culture of envy and resentment. It empowers the state to become a monstrous Leviathan, meddling in every area of life, funded by its magical money machine. It is not good. It is a path to ruin.
Conclusion: The Call to Economic Righteousness
So what is the takeaway for us? This is not just a lesson in abstract economics. It is a call to repentance and righteousness.
First, we must repent of our own dishonesty. In our own businesses, in our own dealings, are we using just weights? Do we deliver what we promise? Do we pay our bills on time? Do we work diligently for our wages? Or do we cut corners, fudge the numbers, and look for clever ways to get ahead at the expense of others? We must be scrupulously honest, not because honesty is the best policy, but because God is holy.
Second, we must call sin by its right name. We must have the courage to say that our nation's monetary policy is a form of institutionalized theft. It is an abomination. We should not be silent while our rulers defraud the people. We must advocate for sound money, for fiscal responsibility, and for a government that lives within its means. This is a matter of basic justice.
Finally, we must remember that the ultimate just weight and balance is the cross of Jesus Christ. At the cross, the scales of divine justice were perfectly balanced. Our sins, which are a debt we could never pay, were weighed and placed upon Christ. His perfect righteousness was weighed and credited to our account. This was the great exchange, the only truly profitable transaction in the history of the world.
Because of this, we who have been saved by grace are called to live graciously. We are called to be a people of the truth, in our pulpits and in our marketplaces. We are to be the kind of people who can be trusted, whose word is their bond, whose scales are true. In doing so, we become a living testimony against a crooked and perverse generation, and we show the world the goodness and justice of our God, who hates a deceitful balance but delights in a just weight.