God's Honest Weights: The Economics of Worship Text: Ezekiel 45:10-12
Introduction: All of Christ for All of Commerce
We live in an age that has tried to put God in a box. For many, He is allowed out on Sunday mornings for an hour or so, provided He stays within the four walls of the church building and doesn't meddle in what are considered the "real" affairs of life. Politics, education, art, and certainly business, are all thought to be god-free zones. Our secularist high priests have drawn their chalk circles around the sanctuary, and they tell us that our faith must not cross those lines. God can have our souls, they say, but they will take the culture. They will take the marketplace.
But the God of Scripture is not some tame deity who can be domesticated and confined to a spiritual ghetto. He is the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and as the Creator, He is the Lord of every square inch of it. This includes the stock exchange, the boardroom, the factory floor, and the checkout counter. There is no such thing as a religiously neutral transaction. Every time money changes hands, every time a contract is signed, every time a price is set, it is a profoundly theological act. It is either done in submission to the God of order and justice, or it is done in rebellion against Him, in service to some other god, whether it be Mammon, or the State, or the god of Self.
Here in Ezekiel, in the midst of this grand, sweeping vision of a restored temple and a renewed land, God pauses to talk about weights and measures. This seems jarring to our modern, pietistic sensibilities. We go from the glorious visions of the holy district and the river of life to a detailed discussion of the ephah, the bath, and the shekel. Why? Because God is intensely interested in the details. He is concerned with righteousness, and righteousness is not an abstract, ethereal concept. It is something that must be worked out in the grit and grime of everyday life. True worship is not just about what happens in the temple; it is about what happens in the market. A society that sings psalms on the Sabbath but cheats its customers on Monday is a society whose worship is an abomination.
Ezekiel is prophesying to a people in exile, a people who had been sent into judgment for their covenant unfaithfulness. And a significant part of that unfaithfulness was economic injustice. The prophets are filled with condemnations of those who "make the ephah small and the shekel great and deal deceitfully with false balances" (Amos 8:5). God is saying that in this new, restored community, things will be different. The holiness of the temple must flow out and sanctify every aspect of the common life, right down to the standards of commerce. This is not some tedious bit of Old Testament legalism. This is the grammar of a godly society. This is what righteousness looks like when it puts on its work boots.
The Text
"You shall have just balances, a just ephah, and a just bath. The ephah and the bath shall be the same quantity so that the bath will contain a tenth of a homer and the ephah a tenth of a homer; their standard shall be according to the homer. And the shekel shall be twenty gerahs; twenty shekels, twenty-five shekels, and fifteen shekels shall be your maneh."
(Ezekiel 45:10-12 LSB)
The Foundation of Justice (v. 10)
The command begins with the fundamental principle of all honest economies.
"You shall have just balances, a just ephah, and a just bath." (Ezekiel 45:10)
This is not a new command. This is a reaffirmation of the abiding law of God. In Leviticus, God says, "You shall do no wrong in judgment, in measures of length or weight or quantity. You shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin" (Lev. 19:35-36). In Deuteronomy, He ties this directly to the covenant blessing of long life in the land (Deut. 25:15). The book of Proverbs tells us plainly that "a false balance is an abomination to the LORD, but a just weight is his delight" (Prov. 11:1). So this is not a minor point; it is central to God's character and His requirements for His people.
A "just balance" means an honest scale. It means that when you weigh something, the measurement is true. An ephah was a standard measure for dry goods, like grain. A bath was a standard measure for liquids, like wine or oil. To have a "just" ephah and a "just" bath meant that the container held exactly what it was supposed to hold. It wasn't made with a thick bottom to cheat the buyer. It was an honest standard.
The principle here is that God is a God of objective truth. Reality is what it is because He made it to be what it is. A kilogram is a kilogram. A liter is a liter. This is the foundation of science, of mathematics, and of commerce. When a society begins to play fast and loose with its standards, it is an attack on the very nature of reality as established by God. It is a form of institutionalized lying. And a society built on lies cannot stand.
This is precisely what we see in our modern economy. We have abandoned a fixed standard for our money. Through the magic of central banking and fiat currency, our rulers can create money out of thin air. This is nothing other than a high-tech version of a false balance. Inflation is a hidden tax, a way for the state to steal the wealth of its citizens by debasing the currency. It is a violation of the eighth commandment on a massive, national scale. It is a rejection of the principle of the "just balance." And when the money goes bad, everything else starts to rot along with it.
The Standard of Honesty (v. 11)
God does not just command honesty; He provides the standard for it.
"The ephah and the bath shall be the same quantity so that the bath will contain a tenth of a homer and the ephah a tenth of a homer; their standard shall be according to the homer." (Ezekiel 45:11 LSB)
Here we see the importance of a fixed, known, and public standard. The ephah (for dry goods) and the bath (for liquids) were to be of the same volume. And both were to be defined in relation to a larger standard, the homer. A homer was a large quantity, about 220 liters. So, an ephah or a bath was about 22 liters. Everyone knew the standard. It wasn't a secret. You could check it.
This is the principle of the rule of law, applied to economics. Justice requires that the rules are known in advance and apply equally to everyone. The government's job is not to rig the market, but to ensure a level playing field by enforcing honest standards. The government is to be the umpire, calling balls and strikes according to a fixed rulebook. It is not supposed to be one of the players, constantly changing the rules to benefit itself or its cronies.
When you have a fixed standard, you have predictability. You have trust. You can make long-term plans. You can build a civilization. When the standards are constantly changing, when the value of your money is being manipulated behind closed doors, you get chaos. You get distrust. People become focused on short-term survival rather than long-term building. This is why God insists on a clear, unchanging standard. It is the necessary precondition for a stable and prosperous society.
Notice also the unity of the standard. The ephah and the bath are the same. They are both based on the homer. This reflects the unity and consistency of God's own character. He is not arbitrary. His law is not a bundle of contradictions. There is a beautiful, coherent order to His creation and to His commands. Our economic life is to reflect that same coherence and integrity.
The Integrity of Money (v. 12)
Finally, the principle of a fixed standard is applied to the unit of currency itself.
"And the shekel shall be twenty gerahs; twenty shekels, twenty-five shekels, and fifteen shekels shall be your maneh." (Ezekiel 45:12 LSB)
A shekel was not originally a coin, but a unit of weight, usually of silver. A gerah was the smallest unit of weight. This verse establishes a clear, fixed definition: one shekel is equal to twenty gerahs. Again, this is about objective standards. The value of the money is tied to a fixed weight of a real commodity. It is honest money.
The second part of the verse has caused some confusion for commentators. "Twenty shekels, twenty-five shekels, and fifteen shekels shall be your maneh." If you add them up (20 + 25 + 15), you get 60. So, the maneh (or mina) is to be 60 shekels. This was likely the Babylonian standard, which the exiles would have been familiar with. The old Israelite maneh was 50 shekels. It seems God is establishing a new, clear standard for the restored community.
But why list the components like that? Perhaps it was to specify the different weights or coins that would be in circulation and how they related to the larger unit. The point is not the specific arithmetic, but the principle: the value of the currency is to be clearly defined and publicly known. It is not to be subject to the whims of the rulers. The state does not create value; it is supposed to recognize and certify the value that already exists in the real world, in a fixed weight of precious metal.
This is a profound polemic against every form of economic tyranny. When a government can manipulate the currency, it holds the power of life and death over its people. It can finance endless wars, build massive welfare states, and reward its friends while punishing its enemies, all through the dishonest mechanism of inflation. Sound money, money tied to a real-world standard, is a leash on the power of the state. It is a fundamental bulwark of liberty. And it is a biblical command.
The Gospel on the Exchange
This may all seem very practical, very earthly. And it is. But it is also shot through with the gospel. How so? Because the problem of dishonest weights and measures is, at its root, a problem of the heart. Men cheat in the marketplace because they are sinners. They are driven by greed, by the lust for power, by a refusal to trust in God's provision. The law exposes this sin, but it cannot cure it.
The only cure for a dishonest heart is a new heart. And that is what the gospel provides. In the great transaction of the cross, God dealt with perfect justice. Our sin, which is an infinite debt, was weighed in the balances of His law and found wanting. We were bankrupt. But Jesus Christ stepped in and paid our debt in full. He, who knew no sin, was made sin for us. "The wages of sin is death," and He was paid those wages on our behalf.
And then, in the glorious exchange of the gospel, His perfect righteousness was credited to our account. God "made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21). This is the ultimate just transaction. It is not a legal fiction; it is a divine reality. God remains perfectly just, because the penalty for sin was paid. And He is the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
When a man is saved by this grace, he is a new creation. He is brought out of the kingdom of darkness, which is a kingdom of lies and theft, and into the kingdom of the Son, which is a kingdom of truth and justice. He is now called to live out that new reality in every area of his life. The man who has been justified freely by God's grace has no need to justify himself by rigging the scales. The woman who has been given the infinite riches of Christ has no need to covet her neighbor's goods.
Therefore, our pursuit of economic justice is not an attempt to earn God's favor. It is the fruit of having already received it. We have honest scales because our God is an honest God. We use just measures because we serve a just King. We advocate for sound money because our hope is built on the solid rock of Christ, the one unchanging standard of all value. We do all this as a witness to the world that there is a King, Jesus, and His ways are the ways of righteousness, peace, and prosperity for all who will bow the knee.