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Proverbs 11:1; 20:10, 23

"A false balance is abomination to the LORD"

"A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight." Honest weights are treated as a religious matter three times in Proverbs (11:1; 20:10, 23; compare 16:11). All the library's witnesses agree on the wording. Archaeology supplies the setting: hundreds of inscribed Judahite stone weights.

Read Proverbs 11:1; 20:10, 23 in every edition

Stable text: no manuscript differences in meaning

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✓ contains this verse · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives

  • Same line, through lost copies
  • Translation
Hebrew
  1. The proverb as first composedCollections from the monarchy to the Persian period (debated)
  2. Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)AD 1008Descends, through lost copies, from The proverb as first composed
  3. Proverbs 20:10 (Leningrad Codex)AD 1008Descends, through lost copies, from The proverb as first composed
Greek
  1. Greek Proverbs (library: Giguet's French)Old Greek c. 2nd century BC; French 1872Translated from the Old Greek Proverbs
Latin
  1. Latin Vulgate (Clementine)Jerome c. AD 398, from Hebrew; edition 1592Translated from the Hebrew text Jerome used
English
  1. King James Bible1611Translated from printed Masoretic Hebrew
New Testament quotation

    Every witness, in order

    1. Collections from the monarchy to the Persian period (debated)

      The proverb as first composed

      – No copy survives

      No original survives. The oldest Hebrew copies of Proverbs are two small Qumran fragments (4Q102, 4Q103, 1st century BC – 1st century AD, reported).

    2. Jerome c. AD 398, from Hebrew; edition 1592

      Latin Vulgate (Clementine)

      ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from the Hebrew text Jerome used

      How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).

      Statera dolosa abominatio est apud Dominum, et pondus æquum voluntas ejus.

      Latin position: Proverbs 11:1. Jerome translated Proverbs from Hebrew (c. AD 398); the Clementine Vulgate sometimes also carries lines from the Greek.

    3. AD 1008

      Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)

      ✓ Contains this passageDescends, through lost copies, from The proverb as first composed

      How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.

      מֹאזְנֵ֣י מִ֭רְמָה תּוֹעֲבַ֣ת יְהוָ֑ה וְאֶ֖בֶן שְׁלֵמָ֣ה רְצוֹנֽוֹ׃

      Scales of deceit are an abomination to the LORD, but a full (complete) stone is his delight

      Hebrew position: Proverbs 11:1.

    4. AD 1008

      Proverbs 20:10 (Leningrad Codex)

      ✓ Contains this passageDescends, through lost copies, from The proverb as first composed

      How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.

      אֶ֣בֶן וָ֭אֶבֶן אֵיפָ֣ה וְאֵיפָ֑ה תּוֹעֲבַ֥ת יְ֝הוָ֗ה גַּם־שְׁנֵיהֶֽם׃

      A stone and a stone, an ephah and an ephah: both alike are an abomination to the LORD

      "Divers weights, and divers measures."

    5. 1611

      King James Bible

      ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

      How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).

      A false balance is abomination to the Lord: but a just weight is his delight.

    6. Old Greek c. 2nd century BC; French 1872

      Greek Proverbs (library: Giguet's French)

      ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from the Old Greek Proverbs

      How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.

      Les balances fausses sont en abomination au Seigneur; le poids juste lui est agréable.

      Greek (digital file) position: Proverbs 11:1. Giguet's 1872 French of a printed Greek text (D check). In these chapters the Greek verse positions in the digital file shift; the matching line was found by content. No Göttingen critical edition of Greek Proverbs is published; a C check needs Rahlfs–Hanhart and specialist studies.

    What changed, and why

    Merchants weighed silver and goods on balances against stone weights carried in a bag (16:11). Judahite weights of the 8th–7th centuries BC are dome-shaped, often marked with a sign for the shekel and a numeral; denominations and their actual masses vary within a range, and some weights found are measurably off standard. A dishonest trader could use one heavy stone for buying and a light one for selling: "a stone and a stone" (20:10).

    The same concern runs through Torah (Leviticus 19:35–36; Deuteronomy 25:13–16) and the prophets (Amos 8:5; Micah 6:10–11; Hosea 12:7). Egyptian and Mesopotamian texts also condemn false measures: Amenemope ch. 16 warns "Do not move the scales nor alter the weights" (Lichtheim; C check). Proverbs uses its strongest term, to'evah, "abomination," for it.

    Weights from excavations illustrate the world of the saying; they cannot show which merchants cheated, or prove the date of the proverb.

    What the evidence shows

    • Independently documentedAll library witnesses agree on 11:1.
    • Independently documentedInscribed Judahite stone weights of the 8th–7th centuries BC have been excavated.
    • Strongly supportedAmenemope also condemns tampering with scales. Reported from Lichtheim (C).

    Sources

      Related lessons

      • Proverbs 11: A Just Weight Is His Delight →Proverbs 11 opens with the marketplace: "A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight" (v. 1). It turns to the fate of the righteous and wicked (vv. 2–8), to the city that rejoices when the righteous prosper and is ruined by the mouth of the wicked (vv. 9–14), to suretyship, honour and kindness (vv. 15–23), and to a group of sayings on generosity: the one who scatters and still gains, the liberal soul made fat, and the curse on the man who hoards grain (vv. 24–31).
      • Proverbs 20: Wine Is a Mocker →Chapter 20 opens with a warning about intoxication: "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging" (v. 1). It moves through the king (vv. 2, 8, 26, 28), honest dealing ("Divers weights, and divers measures, both of them are alike abomination to the LORD," vv. 10, 23; the haggling buyer, v. 14; pledges, v. 16), the limits of self-knowledge ("Who can say, I have made my heart clean?" v. 9; "Man's goings are of the LORD; how can a man then understand his own way?" v. 24), revenge left to God (v. 22), and "The spirit of man is the candle of the LORD" (v. 27).