When I step on the bathroom scale, I generally don’t like the readout. I’ve tried pulling myself up a little with the towel bar to get a better number. But that’s cheating.
“The Lord detests dishonest scales, but accurate weights find favor with him” (Proverbs 11:1). God hates any kind of fraud. Fraudulent practices have been around since he rebooted human history after he booted Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden. Merchants cheated people by putting their fingers on the payload side of a balance scale so they could charge more money for less product. Now cheaters try to institutionalize their advantage. Politicians gerrymander congressional districts so their voters will outnumber voters from the opposition party. They must think we won’t notice.
Justice is supposed to be blind, and any kind of scale is supposed to be fairly balanced. But our commerce and politics are out of whack. We take dishonest scales for granted. We might even think treating others fairly puts us at a disadvantage.
God saw that people cheat and asked himself, “Shall I acquit someone with dishonest scales?” (Micah 6:11). He answered yes and unbalanced his own standards of justice for our benefit. He placed our sin and shame on Jesus like he deserved it and we didn’t. That’s how “he’s already made it plain how to live, what to do, what God is looking for in men and women. It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor” (Micah 6:8 MSG).
