God Detests Double Measures

Daily Devotional – Sunday, January 28, 2024
Differing weights and differing measures—the LORD detests them both.
Proverbs 20:10 (NIV)

As a boy, I used to see officers from the Weights and Measures Department moving from shop to shop, checking respective weighing scales. I recalled these officers recently when I saw a disgruntled customer weigh a loaf of bread and realize that it weighed less than the stipulated mass.

The Lord Hates Inconsistency

This unscrupulous activity, though, is not a 21st-century invention. Kind Solomon addressed it thousands of years ago when he wrote, “Differing weights and differing measures—the LORD detests them both.” (Proverbs 20:10).

Weights were employed for measuring purposes; unscrupulous vendors stored them in various weights and capacities, switching them out to con gullible patrons. They are an abomination to the Lord, who detests injustice, loves righteousness, hates sin, and demands that people act justly. He also detests everything that is harmful to people’s property.

God Detests Double Measures

Moreover, at a spiritual level, “a man may be said to keep a double measure, who, being conscious of his own evil character, endeavors to appear righteous to others” (Pulpit Commentary). In other words, God detests hypocrisy as much as He dislikes fraudulent practices in business. Pretending to be who we are not in order to please the public is evil.

God wants us to live righteously in public and in private. We cannot have different standards in light from those we use in darkness. What we are in church, we must become at home and in the workplace. We must be Christians during the six days of labor, not just on the one day of rest and worship. God detests double measures in spiritual and temporal matters.

Prayer
Almighty God, help me not to live a double life but to always live righteously.