Weights and Measures 

Unequal weights and unequal measures are both alike an abomination to the LORD.  Proverbs 20:10

Sometimes it surprises me what matters to God. For instance, the “hairs of your head are numbered” thing—who but God and a few bald guys would care? I just got my hair cut. When she got done, it looked like a fat gray mouse had exploded on the barber shop floor. I think I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Recalculating.”

Anyway, although I’ve seen this verse and the ones like it before, it still surprises me that “unequal weights and unequal measures” would earn the status of being “an abomination to the LORD”—a term generally reserved in the Bible for “icky” sins like sexual depravity. Just having two sets of weights, one for friends and family, another for people we don’t like or know, earns us this kind of rebuke from God? Yup. He’s serious about a lot of things, apparently including fairness.

This verse hearkens back to earlier times when, instead of a bar code beeping across a scanner, a small business merchant would be in possession of a basket or a scale by which to measure goods. It probably wasn’t that hard to have a “guest” measure available to shortchange people who looked like they could afford it. It wasn’t as if a “weights and measurements” inspector was standing around the open marketplace, making sure everything was kosher. Merchants were pretty much on the honor system, when it came to fairness. It turns out that God doesn’t like people getting ripped off, even if they’re rich people.

So, fairness and honesty matter to God. The double standard in business which gouges customers on purpose; the insider trading which goes on; all kinds of rip-off’s created to bilk people out of their money—He doesn’t appreciate that? No. It’s an abomination to Him. Really. His followers should have no part in cheating people, even if “they’re on the other side.” Fairness and honesty—to everyone. That’s what God expects of His children. He expects it in business. He expects it in relationships. I’m thinking He even expects it in politics, a playground for double standards if there ever was one.

As followers of the Most High and Most Fair God, we’re obligated to be just in our dealings with all people, not just the ones we like or who share our whatever. It’s one more part of the price we pay in trying to live a righteous life.

Dave Ness

The Bottom Line: God cares about, and expects, honesty and fairness from us.