Leviticus 19:36

Hebrew Bible

34 The resident foreigner who lives with you must be to you as a native citizen among you; so you must love the foreigner as yourself, because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. 35 You must not do injustice in the regulation of measures, whether of length, weight, or volume. 36 You must have honest balances, honest weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin. I am the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt. 37 You must be sure to obey all my statutes and regulations. I am the Lord.’”

Hosea 12:7

Hebrew Bible

5 As for the Lord God Almighty, the Lord is the name by which he is remembered! 6 But you must return to your God, by maintaining love and justice and by waiting for your God to return to you. 7 The businessmen love to cheat; they use dishonest scales. 8 Ephraim boasts, “I am very rich! I have become wealthy! In all that I have done to gain my wealth, no one can accuse me of any offense that is actually sinful.” 9 “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt; I will make you live in tents again as in the days of old.

 Notes and References

"... 'treacherous scales' For a similar comment on Israelite merchants, see Amos 8. Verse 9 follows verse 8 in uncovering the dishonest business practices by which Ephraim became rich. This is comparable to Jacob's reputation, and the reference to scales is symbolic of crooked dealing. Ephraim's sin has two aspects; he is greedy and dishonest. He acquired wealth by fraudulent means. Verses 8 and 9 explain what is meant by verse 1, as the repetition of the word mirmd shows. This is his moral-ethical failure. Verse 12 explains his religio-cultic failure. Between these two accusations comes a reminder of Yahweh's kindly dealings from the Exodus down through a long line of prophets. The juxtaposition of the ethical and the religious is typical of Israelite prophecy, and so is a concrete expression like 'treacherous scales,' which identifies a physical instrument of human wickedness, focusing on sin as act and not just disposition. The opposite is the 'balances of sedeq' accurate scales (Leviticus 19:36; Ezekiel 45:10; Job 31:6). The use of such expressions in Wisdom literature, for example, Proverbs 11:1; 20:23, can make them a symbol of any kind of dishonesty. Amos's use of the same phrase (Amos 8:5) points to business practices; it is not just a general symbol ..."

Andersen, Francis I., and David Noel Freedman Hosea: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (p. 616) Doubleday, 1980

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