Biblion Bible Commentary
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Differing Weights and Differing Measures
Proverbs 20:16-30
16 Take the garment of one who puts up collateral for a stranger; and hold him in pledge for a wayward woman. · WEB
The scales come back twice in eight verses, and between them stands an instruction not to settle a score.
Differing weights and differing measures, both of them alike are an abomination to Yahweh. Two sets of weights meant one for buying and a different one for selling, and the phrase both of them alike closes the loophole a man might argue — that he only cheated in one direction. Seven verses later it is said again, in case anyone missed it: Yahweh detests differing weights, and dishonest scales are not pleasing. No other practical offense in the book gets that treatment.
Fraud is then described by taste rather than by law. Fraudulent food is sweet to a man, but afterwards his mouth is filled with gravel. The sweetness is granted. What follows is grit in the teeth — not punishment arriving from outside, but the same meal, later.
Between the two verses about scales sits an instruction on revenge, and it is one of the few places in the collection that forbids an action outright rather than describing its consequence. Don't say, "I will pay back evil." Wait for Yahweh, and he will save you. Two things are asked. Do not do it, and do not say it — the sentence is prohibited along with the act. And the alternative offered is not forgiveness but waiting, with the case handed to somebody else.
Two verses concern what can be seen inside a person. The spirit of man is Yahweh's lamp, searching all his innermost parts. A lamp is carried into dark rooms, and the image places the light inside the man rather than shining on him from outside. Conscience is described as God's own instrument, held in the person it examines.
The closing verses set the generations beside each other without ranking them: The glory of young men is their strength. The splendor of old men is their gray hair. Each has something the other does not, and the collection names both as glory. It follows a verse noting that a rash vow becomes a snare when a man later reconsiders it — advice that belongs to the young, from a book that expects them to grow old.
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