Just balances.
The princes of Israel are exhorted to govern justly and to be fair in their exaction of taxes. The older prophets often had occasion to denounce the oppression and robbery of the people by the princes. After the chastisement of the Captivity, the restored people should be well treated by a better order of princes. But when the rulers set an example of using just balances, the people may he required to follow.
I. COMMERCIAL HONESTY IS A PRIMARY CHRISTIAN DUTY. It is possible to represent the spirituality of religion as so extremely ethereal that it has no contact with the commonplace facts of daily life. There is a subtle temptation to antinomianism in the highest pretensions of holiness. But the scriptural view of religion keeps it in close relations with plain every-day morality. The saintliness that is too refined to condescend to questions of truth and honesty is pure hypocrisy. The Christian should be first just and true; let him then add whatever other graces he may attain to. But to neglect these duties is to leave the most fundamental parts of morality unestablished. The airy pinnacles of rapturous devotion that shoot up so high in the heavens rest on an insecure foundation when these essential duties are neglected.
II. THIS DUTY IS SHAMEFULLY NEGLECTED BY PROFESSEDLY CHRISTIAN PEOPLE. In some quarters there seems to be a tacit understanding that it is impossible to be quite true and straightforward. A certain amount of laxity is said to be permitted by "the custom of the trade." This evil is glaringly apparent in regard to those goods that are exported to foreign nations. The worthless shoddy and the sized calico that wealthy English firms send abroad advertise to the world the hypocrisy of English Christianity. It is hard for the missionary to urge the heathen to embrace the gospel when the merchant offers to them these things as specimens of its products. It is vain to urge that competition is so fierce as to make an honest course ruinous to these who would pursue it. It is better to be a bankrupt than to be a thief. But experience shows that dishonest trading does not pay in the long run. Its character is certain to be discovered, and then confidence is destroyed and the trade checked. On the other hand, there are well-known houses that have grown rich and prosperous on their ascertained fairness in supplying good wares by honest measures.
III. DISHONESTY MINGLED WITH FALSEHOOD IS DOUBLY WICKED. This is the case where incorrect measures are used. The measures are intended to represent a certain standard, of which they come short. There is the pretence of giving good measure. This is worse than the offering of a short quantity without the show of testing it. The highwayman who meets a man openly and demands his purse is no hypocrite. But the business man who uses false measures is passing himself off as honest while he is acting as a thief. The shame of lying is added to the crime of stealing. There is an abuse of confidence, for the well-known measure is supposed to represent a certain quantity. The deceitfulness of this conduct utterly degrades the miserable man who fattens for a while on its ill-gotten gains, only to reap in the end certain ruin in the next world, if not in this.