Proverbs 16:11

A just weight and balance are the LORD'S: all the weights of the bag are his work.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(11) A just weight and balance are the Lord’s.—See above on Proverbs 11:1.

Benson Commentary

Proverbs 16:11. A just weight, &c., are the Lord’s — Are God’s work, as it follows; made by his direction and appointment, so that no man can corrupt or alter them, without violating God’s rights and authority, and incurring his displeasure. In other words, the administration of public justice by the magistrate is an ordinance of God; in it the scales are held, or ought to be held, by a steady and impartial hand; and we ought to submit to it for the Lord’s sake, and to see his authority in that of the magistrate, Romans 13:1; 1 Peter 2:13. The observation of justice in commerce between man and man is likewise a divine appointment. He taught men discretion to make scales and weights, for the adjusting of right exactly between buyer and seller, that neither might be wronged. And all other useful inventions, for the preserving of right, are from him. He has also appointed, by his law, that men be just; it is, therefore, a great affront to him, and to his government, to falsify, and so to do wrong under colour and pretence of doing right, which is wickedness in the place of judgment.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

16:4. God makes use of the wicked to execute righteous vengeance on each other; and he will be glorified by their destruction at last. 5. Though sinners strengthen themselves and one another, they shall not escape God's judgments. 6. By the mercy and truth of God in Christ Jesus, the sins of believers are taken away, and the power of sin is broken. 7. He that has all hearts in his hand, can make a man's enemies to be at peace with him. 8. A small estate, honestly come by, will turn to better account than a great estate ill-gotten. 9. If men make God's glory their end, and his will their rule, he will direct their steps by his Spirit and grace. 10. Let kings and judges of the earth be just, and rule in the fear of God. 11. To observe justice in dealings between man and man is God's appointment.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

See Proverbs 11:1 note. People are not to think that trade lies outside the divine law. God has commanded there also all that belongs to truth and right.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

11. are the Lord's … his work—that is, what He has ordered, and hence should be observed by men.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Are the Lord’s; are God’s work, as it follows; made by his direction and appointment, so as no man can corrupt or alter them without violating God’s rights and authority, and incurring his displeasure.

The weights, Heb. the stones, which they then used as weights. See Poole "Proverbs 11:1".

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

A just weight and balance are the Lord's,.... These are of his devising; what he has put into the heart, of men to contrive and make use of, for the benefit of mankind, for the keeping and maintaining truth and justice in commercial affairs; these are of his appointing, commanding, and approving, Leviticus 19:35;

all the weights of the bag are his work; or, "all the stones" (h); greater or smaller, which were formerly used in weighing, and were kept in a bag for that purpose; these are by the Lord's appointment and order. This may be applied to the Scriptures of truth, which are of God; are the balance of the sanctuary, in which every doctrine is to be weighed and tried; what agrees with them is to be received, and what is found wanting is to be rejected. The Targum is,

"his works, all of them, are weights of truth.''

(h) "lapides", Montanus, Vatablus, Piscator, Mercerus, Michaelis.

Geneva Study Bible

A just weight and balance are the LORD'S: all the weights of the bag are his {f} work.

(f) If they are true and just, they are God's work, and he delights in it, but otherwise if they are false, they are the work of the devil, and to their condemnation that use them.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

11. weight and balance] Rather, balance (or, steelyard) and scales. See Proverbs 11:1, note.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 11. - A just weight and balance are the Lord's (Proverbs 11:1); literally, the balance and scales of justice (are) the Lord's. They come under his law, are subject to the Divine ordinances which regulate all man's dealings. The great principles of truth end justice govern all the transactions of buying and selling; religion enters into the business of trading, and weights and measures are sacred things. Vulgate, "The weights and the balance are judgments of the Lord;" being true and fair, they are regarded as God's judgment. Septuagint, "The turn of the balance is justice before God." All the weights of the bag are his work. Some have round a difficulty here, because the bag may contain false as well as true weights (Deuteronomy 25:13), and it could not be said that the light weights were the Lord's work. This surely is captious criticism. The maxim merely states that the trader's weights take their origin and authority from God's enactment, from certain eternal principles which he has established. What man's chicanery and fraud make of them does not come into view. (For the law that regulates such matters, see Leviticus 19:35, etc.) That cheating in this respect was not uncommon we learn from the complaints of the prophets, as Micah 6:11. The religious character of the standard weights and measures is shown by the term "shekel of the sanctuary" (Exodus 38:24, and elsewhere continually). Proverbs 16:11

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

11 The scale and balances of a right kind are Jahve's;

     His work are the weights of the bag.

Regarding פּלס, statera, a level or steelyard (from פּלס, to make even), vid., Proverbs 4:26; מאזנים (from אזן, to weigh), libra, is another form of the balance: the shop-balance furnished with two scales. אבני are here the stones that serve for weights, and כּים, which at Proverbs 1:14 properly means the money-bag, money-purse (cf. Proverbs 7:20), is here, as at Micah 6:11, the bag in which the merchant carries the weights. The genit. משׁפּט belongs also to פּלס, which, in our edition, is pointed with the disjunctive Mehuppach legarme, is rightly accented in Cod. 1294 (vid., Torath Emeth, p. 50) with the conjunctive Mehuppach. משׁפט, as 11b shows, is not like מרמה, the word with the principal tone; 11a says that the balance thus, or thus constructed, which weighs accurately and justly, is Jahve's, or His arrangement, and the object of His inspection, and 11b, that all the weight-stones of the bag, and generally the means of weighing and measuring, rest upon divine ordinance, that in the transaction and conduct of men honesty and certainty might rule. This is the declared will of God, the lawgiver; for among the few direct determinations of His law with reference to trade this stands prominent, that just weights and just measures shall be used, Leviticus 19:36; Deuteronomy 25:13-16. The expression of the poet here frames itself after this law; yet 'ה is not exclusively the God of positive revelation, but, as agriculture in Isaiah 28:29, cf. Sirach 7:15, so here the invention of normative and normal means of commercial intercourse is referred to the direction and institution of God.