#1. A Preliminary Study of
the Figure of the Balances in Scripture.


Every reader of the Scriptures is familiar with that dramatic incident recorded by Daniel, where a finger writes upon the plaster of the wall of the King’s palace the words of doom; Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin, which, being interpreted, meant:--

“MENE: God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it.
TEKEL: Thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting.
PERES: Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians”
(Dan. v. 26-28).

What, in a specific sense, was true of Belshazzar, is true of us all, for it is written, “There is none righteous, no, not one . . . . . all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. iii. 10, 23).

In this series we purpose taking the figure of the balances, and bringing before the reader several aspects of divine truth wherein an observation of balance is of the utmost importance. Before doing so, however, it will be well if we acquaint ourselves with the way in which this figure of the balances is used in Scripture. The earliest reference is in Gen. xxiii. 16, where “Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver, which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchants”.

Anyone at all acquainted with the religion of ancient Egypt will remember the prominent place the “weighing of the heart” occupies in the, so-called, Book of the Dead, and the constellation known as Libra, “The Scales”, in the signs of the Zodiac, shows that from earliest antiquity scales and weighs were known to men. The Hebrew word Moznayim, which is found in the O.T., is the Hebrew name for this sign, Libra, and the brightest star of this constellation is named Zuben al Genubi, “The price which is deficient”, and another bright star is named Zuben al Chemali, “The price which covers” (Dr. Bullinger’s The Witness of the Stars).

The standard weight was fixed as far back as the time of Moses, for we read of “The shekel (or weight) of the sanctuary” (Exod. xxx. 13, 24; Lev. v. 15). Job also uses the figure of the balance, saying:

“Oh that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together! For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea” (Job vi. 2, 3).
“Let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know mine integrity” (Job xxxi. 6).

The word translated “even” here is tsedeq, “right” or “just”.

Job speaks also of “the weight” for the winds and of the waters (Job xxviii. 25), and “the balancings” of the clouds (Job xxxvii. 16), while Isaiah takes note of the “small dust of the balance” (Isa. xl. 15), an indication that the system of weights in Israel was far from being either crude or primitive. The word that is translated “weight” in the O.T. is the Hebrew word eben, “A stone”, and there is much to be said for a weight being made of stone, as it is less likely than a metal one to gain or lose.

Throughout the Scriptures balances are used as a figure of righteousness, just as to-day they are used as a symbol of justice:

“Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure. Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin, shall ye have” (Lev. xix. 35, 36).
“Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small . . . . . But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight” (Deut. xxv. 13-15).
“A false balance is abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is His delight” (Prov. xi. 1).
“A just weight and balance are the Lord’s: all the weights of the bag are His work” (Prov. xvi. 11).

These are references are to literal weights and balances, but, in turn, they typify the righteous judgment of the Lord. In the second verse of this same sixteenth chapter of Proverbs we are reminded that “the Lord weigheth the spirits”, while in I Sam. ii. 3 we are told that by Him “actions are weighed”. Hosea charged Ephraim with using “balances of deceit” (Hos. xii. 7). Amos makes similar charges against Israel, saying that they make the ephah “small” and the shekel “great” and that they “falsify the balances by deceit” (Amos viii. 5), while Micah asks concerning Judah, “Shall I count them pure with the wicked balances, and with the bag of deceitful weights?” (Micah vi. 11).

The A.V. translates several Hebrew words by the English “weigh”, “weight”, or “balance”, the most important being the verb shaqal, which gives us the familiar “shekel”. The word tekel used in the writing on the wall in Belshazzar’s palace is a Chaldean equivalent of this word.

While we do not suggest that the Hebrew prophets anticipated Newton’s discovery of the law of gravity, the fact that this self-same word, shaqal, gives us the word “plummet” (II Kings xxi. 13; Isa. xxviii. 17), shows that all who used these words would know that the force which enabled them to weigh their bread likewise enabled them to build to a perpendicular line. So to this day we speak of a “right” line and a “right” angle, using the word that gives us “righteousness”. Another word translated “weigh” is the Hebrew word palas, which means “To make level, or even”. As a noun it means “the beam of a balance” (Prov. xvi. 11; Isa. xl. 12). The verb is used generally for the mental process of “pondering” or “adjusting”: “Ponder the path of thy feet” (Prov. iv. 26). The one other word translated “weigh” is takan. Its primary meaning can be seen in the fact that in the Niphal future it is always translated “equal”, the essential element in weighing with a balance.

The word translated “balances” is moznayim, a dual word indicating “a pair”. It is derived from the same root that gives us ozen, “the ear”, as though the ear “weighed” or “balanced” the sounds that reached it. “The ear” often indicates the faculty of understanding, as in Job xii. 11, “Doth not the ear try words”, not merely “hear” them.

In the N.T. the one occurrence of the word “balances” is in Rev. vi. 5, where the Greek word zugos, “yoke”, or “crossbar” is used. But four occurrences of the word “weight” are found in the N.T., viz.:

“The eternal weight (baros) of glory” (II Cor. iv. 17).
“His letters . . . . . are weighty (barus)” (II Cor. x. 10).
“The weightier (baruteros) matters of the law” (Matt. xxiii. 23).

Here the word baros and barus mean “pressure”, a meaning with which we are familiar in the word “barometer”.

The other, and fourth, word is that used in Heb. xii. 1, where we are enjoined to “lay aside every weight”, and is the Greek word ogkos (pronounced ongkos). This word means a tumour or a swelling, then a mass, as of corpulence, and then a swelling with pride. These meanings we gather from its use in the classics: it occurs but one in the N.T. Such a twofold meaning however exactly fits the context, for if a runner were to enter a race encumbered with too much flesh he could not hope to complete successfully, even as, in the spiritual sense, pride or pandering to the flesh is fatal to the believer’s hopes of finishing his course.

We trust that these opening remarks will be useful in themselves and will, moreover, stimulate our study of this principle of balance, as we seek to apply it to doctrine and practice. This we hope to do in subsequent studies.

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(From The Berean Expositor, vol. 33, page 215).

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