“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11)
Growing Dominion, Part 116
“Divers weights, and divers measures, both of them are alike abomination to the Lord” (Prov. 20:10).
The obvious reference of this passage would be the dishonest butcher with his thumb on the scales. In a sinful world, merchants have always been able to figure out ways to tamper with the means of measuring—they dilute the liquid, put a small amount of cereal in big boxes, put false bottoms in soda cans, and so on. But flexible weights and flexible measures are both hated by God.
But we have to think on a broader scale than is provided by one dishonest merchant. As our society has gotten more complicated, the opportunities to tinker with the standards have only increased. There are many examples of this, but Christians need to learn that a standard practice of modern governments—that of inflating the currency—is an example of the kind of behavior that this verse condemns. Inflation is more than “unsound” economic policy; inflation is theft. It is a means of altering the way we measure the value of goods and services, with the government using the extra money it has just printed in order to buy at the old prices. But when that money starts circulating in the economy, it creates the optical illusion that the price of bread (say) is going up. What is happening is that the value of the money has gone down, and the value that has disappeared has done so because it was stolen. This is not done with a thumb on the scales, but it is done with the same kind of dishonesty in the heart.