At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)
Divers weights are an abomination unto the Lord; And a false balance is not good.
Proverbs 20:23
The first thing to note about this proverb is that is has an obvious and immediate application. This is talking about a butcher with his thumb on the scale, with the result that he can sell a pound and a half of hamburger as though it were two pounds. This is simply cheating and fraud in business. A rigged scale is no good (false balance). A different set of weights in the bag allows a merchant to cheat with one set and do honest business with another, which means that the whole bag is rejected by God.
The second thing to notice is how much God hates this kind of thing. It is described here as an abomination. That means that such a cheating approach is loathsome to God. God hates every form of dishonesty, particularly those forms of dishonesty which harm or rob the victim of it. It is no trifle, and cannot be dismissed as “shrewd business practices,” or “cutting corners.” God does not praise it as business savvy, but rather sees it as detestable, execrable, revolting, odious, hideous, disgusting, and abhorrent. He despises it. That is what abomination means.
And third, divers weights should be taken by us in our application as a metaphor for every kind of rigged system. Parents who treat one child as a favorite. School administrators who allow a board member’s kid to get away with things that somebody else’s child cannot. Courts that favor the rich over the poor. Courts that favor the poor over the rich. Referees in a basketball game who show favoritism. Teachers who grade papers with an eye on who needs to qualify to start in the football game this weekend. In short, all of us are called, every day we are called, to use equal weights and measures in all our dealings with everyone else.
