Deuteronomy 25

Just Weights

Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small. Deuteronomy 25:13.

The work of exploring the ancient cities of Palestine or Babylon is most interesting. There may be nothing to show where the city stood but a large mound or mounds. The houses have fallen and crumbled to dust. The walls have fallen also. Only the large stones of the foundations are left in their place, buried in the dust and sand.

But when the explorer comes with his spade and tools, and carefully opens up this mound, what wonderful things he finds. He can trace the city of thousands of years ago, and tell you where the walls stood, and where the streets, what kind of houses the people had, what race they belonged to, and how they lived. He finds in the houses of these people, so long dead, broken dishes, and he will tell you how they were made, and where. He finds tools of stone, or bronze, or iron, and he can tell from these the time at which the city flourished. He may dig deeper still, and find tools or weapons of stone which show that still farther back an older race lived on the same spot, and died away and was succeeded by the people whose remains were found above theirs. There are traces of their altars and high places, and he will tell you what their religion was, and who were their gods. You may imagine yourself going through the street of the living town, and seeing the workmen at work. Here was the potter's workshop, where he made his clay pots and bowls. Here was the carpenter, and here the worker in stone, and here the goldsmith.

Now those who have excavated can tell you an unusual thing about this goldsmith. He was found to have had two drawers full of little stone weights. When these were examined, one lot was found to be too light, the other lot was too heavy. Why? Because the heavy weights were used in buying that he might get more than he ought to get, and the light weights were used in selling, that he might give less than he should give. I wonder if people suspected him of such tricks, but could not prove it? One might think that as his false weights have lain hidden for thousands of years, his sin would never be found out, yet there it is. This kind of dishonesty is very old. It was in use when the Book of Deuteronomy was written. So it was necessary to put this law into it: “Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small.”

In these days we have inspectors of weights and measures, whose business it is to see that weights are all exactly the same as a fixed standard, so that when we ask for a pound of tea or sugar, we can be sure that we shall always get the same quantity.

But it is not only the grocer who weighs things.

We are all weighing and measuring things in one way or another. And not only things but people. When we read some story of cruelty and wrong, like Uncle Tom ' s Cabin, and indignation rises in our hearts, we are weighing the people who did those things and finding them bad weight. This is how we weigh everybody we have to do with.

1. Now, since we cannot help weighing and judging people, it is of the greatest importance that our weights should be right The grocer's weights are kept right by a certain standard fixed by the Government. Who can fix the standard of what is right and wrong? Only God. And no one but God can judge anybody quite justly, for He alone knows all their motives and reasons, and how sometimes when they meant good it seemed to turn out evil. When we weigh actions and people and judge whether they are right or wrong, we must try our weights by God's standard, that is, we must consider how God sees them, and we must be very careful, since we cannot see into the heart, lest we should call good what God calls bad, or bad what He calls good. We must have a perfect and just weight, or as near it as we can get.

2. The second thing to remember is that we must not have two sets of weights. What is wrong is wrong whether in ourselves or in others. It is so very easy to see excuses for ourselves. Our faults never seem quite so bad as those of other people. We “did not mean it,” or it was “only this” or “only that.” We are apt to weigh other people's sins with one weight and our own with another. But that will not do. Nor will it do to weigh ourselves with them, and say, “Well, I am not so bad as that girl anyhow.” Nor must we have one set of weights for the people we like and another for the people we dislike. Goodness is goodness, and we must admit it wherever we see it, even in those we don't like. If we shut our eyes to that, do you know what we are doing? We are spoiling our standard weight.

Here, then, are two things to remember a perfect weight, and a standard weight, for yourself as well as everybody else.

Said the boy as he read, “I too will be bold,

I will fight for the truth and its glory!”

He went to the playground, and soon had told

A very cowardly story!

Said the girl as she read, “That was grand, I declare!

What a true, what a lovely, sweet soul!”

In half an hour she went up the stair,

Looking as black as a coal!

“The mean little wretch, I wish I could fling

This book at his head!” said another;

Then he went and did the same ugly thing

To his own little trusting brother!

Alas for him who sees a thing grand

And does not fit himself to it!

But the meanest act, on sea or on land,

Is to find a fault, and then do it!