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Job only desires to be weighed in an even balance. He feels that his friends have judged him in anything but a fair manner, and he now craves for the true justice of God.

I. THE JUSTICE OF AN EVEN BALANCE IS GREATLY TO BE DESIRED. People have taken a very narrow view of justice, so narrow a view as to be practically false and most fallacious. Justice has been regarded as the power that punishes sin, and while, of course, this is true, this is not a description of the true nature and ultimate character of it, but only a statement of one of its special functions - a function which would not exist if sin had not entered the world. Yet justice would have an ample field if there were no wickedness. It is not like the executioner, whose occupation would be gone with the cessation of lawlessness. Justice is righteousness. It is the principle that insists on seeing right done. Every lover of the good must desire to see such a principle flourish. Between man and man justice is fairness. When we say God deals justly we imply that he deals fairly. This may not mean equality. For to load a mule with the same burden we would put on an elephant's back is not fair dealing st all. Equity is not equality. But it is a suitable and proportionate dealing with each individual

II. THE JUSTICE OF AN EVEN BALANCE IS RARE AMONG MEN. Job did not see it, and therefore he greatly longed for it. Many things falsify the scales of justice.

1. Prejudice. Truth should be on one side of the scales - as in the Egyptian legend of weighing the souls of the dead. But prejudice either pares the weight of truth and so lessens its value, or adds its own weight.

2. Self-interest. Justice should be impartial; but men are not. A pure detachment of mind is very difficult to acquire. Instead of considering merit, people take account of what pleases them or what may be. profitable to them.

3. Ignorance. When there is the utmost genuineness of desire to weigh justly, we may make a mistake simply because we do not put all the facts into the scale.

III. THE JUSTICE OF AN EVEn BALANCE IS FOUND WITH GOD.

1. Pure equity. He allows no prejudice to warp his judgment, no self interest to pervert his verdict. God is perfectly just in his own character. Therefore he can judge men justly. Being righteous himself, he is never prompted to act otherwise than righteously.

2. Knowledge. God makes none of the unintentional mistakes that are so common with men. The whole tangled mass of events is unravelled by his perfectly penetrating gaze. When we despair of having a case truly seen by our fellow-men, we can lift up our eyes to the great Judge of all the earth and be assured that he knows all Surely, then, it is most necessary to stand right with the justice of God, that this may vindicate and not condemn us. But only the God-given righteousness in Christ can make this possible to us. ? W.F.A.

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KJV: Let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know mine integrity.

WEB: (let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know my integrity);