Balance
VIEW:55 DATA:01-04-2020
BALANCE.The Hebrew balances probably differed but little from those in use in Egypt as described by Wilkinson (Anc. Egyp. [1878], II. 246 f.). The main parts were the beam with its support, and the scales which were hung by cords from the ends of the equal arms of the beam. The pair of scales is used in OT by a figure for the balance as a whole; only once is the beam so used (Isa_46:6). The weights were originally of stone and are always so termed. The moral necessity of a just balance and true weights and the iniquity of false ones are frequently emphasized by the prophets, moral teachers, and legislators of Israel; see Amo_8:5, Mic_6:11, Pro_11:1; Pro_16:11 (a just balance and scales are the Lords) Pro_20:23, Lev_19:36, Deu_25:13 ff.
A. R. S. Kennedy.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
The emblem of justice (Job_31:6; Psa_62:9; Pro_11:1) the test of truth and honesty. The emblem of scarcity, food being weighed out Rev_6:5). Mozenaim, "double scales" (Gen_23:16). Qaneh, "the beam of a balance" (Isa_46:6). Peles, "scales" (Isa_40:12): literally, "the beam", or else the aperture in which the tongue or beam moves.
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.
bal?ans The English word ?balance? is from the Latin bilanx = ?having two scales? (bi = ?two? and lanx = ?plate,? or ?scale?). It is used to render three Hebrew words: (1) מאזנים, mō'znayim (Lev_19:36; Job_6:2; Psa_62:9; Pro_11:1; Isa_40:12, Isa_40:15; Jer_32:10, etc.); (2) קנה, ḳāneh (Isa_46:6), and (3) פלס, peleṣ (Pro_16:11). It is found in the sing., e.g. ?a just balance? (Pro_16:11); ?a pair of balances? (Rev_6:5, etc.), as well as in the plur., e.g. ?just balances? (Lev_19:36), ?weighed in the balances? (Dan_5:27, etc.).
1. Balances Among the Ancient Hebrews; the Parts, Etc
(1) The ?balances? of the ancient Hebrews differed little, if at all, from those used by the Egyptians (Wilkinson, Anc. Egypt (1878), II, 246 f). They consisted, probably, of a horizontal bar, either pivoted on a perpendicular rod (see Erman, Aegypten, I, 615 for similar Egyptian balances), or suspended from a cord and held in the hand, the more primitive form. At the ends of the bar were pans, or hooks, from which the things to be weighed were suspended, sometimes in bags.
A good description of the more developed and final form is this: A beam with its fulcrum in the middle and its arms precisely equal. From the ends of the arms were suspended two scales, the one to receive the object to be weighed, the other the counterpoise, or weight.
(2) The weights were of stone at first and are so named in Deu_25:13 King James Version, margin. A pair of scales (the King James Version ?a pair of balances?) is used in Rev_6:5 by a figure of speech for the balance as a whole; only once is the beam so used, in Isa_46:6, literally, ?weigh silver in the beam.? Abraham, we are told (Gen_23:16), ?weighed the silver.?
2. Probably of Babylonian Origin
The basis and fountain-head of all systems of weights and measurements is to be traced, it is now thought, to Babylonia; but the primitive instruments and systems were subject to many modifications as they entered other regions and passed into the derivative systems. The Roman ?balance? is the same as our steelyard (vulgarly called ?stillyards?). Compare the Chinese, Danish, etc.
3. The System of Weighing Liable to Fraud
Though the ?balances? in ancient times were rudely constructed, the weighing could be done quite accurately, as may be seen in the use of equally primitive balances in the East today. But the system was liable to fraud. A ?false balance? might be literally one so constructed that the arms were of unequal length, when the longer arm would be intended, of course, for the article to be weighed. The system was liable, however, to various other subtle abuses then as now; hence the importance in God's sight of ?true weights? and a ?just balance? is enforced again and again (see Lev_19:36; Pro_11:1; Pro_16:11; Pro_20:23; Amo_8:5; Mic_6:11, etc.).
4. ?Wicked Balances? Condemned
?A false balance is an abomination to Yahweh? (Pro_11:1; compare Pro_20:23), and ?a just balance and scales are Yahweh's? (Pro_16:11). Hos (Hos_12:7) condemns ?the balances of deceit? in the hand of the wicked; Am (Isa_8:5 the King James Version) cries out upon ?falsifying the balances by deceit,? and Mic (Isa_6:11) denounces ?wicked balances.? Indeed, the righteousness of a just balance and true weights, and the iniquity of false ones are everywhere emphasized by the lawmakers, prophets and moral teachers of Israel, and the preacher or teacher who would expose and denounce such things in God's name today need be at no loss for texts and precedents. See WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.
Literature
Wilkinson, Ancient Egypt; Erman, Egypt; Lepsius, Denkmaler; and articles on ?Balance.? etc., in Smith, DB, EB, Jewish Encyclopedia, HDB, etc.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.
Balance [WEIGHTS AND MEASURES]
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.
Balance
as a Christian symbol. In this relation it appears sometimes upon Christian tombs. A sepulchral stone from the Cemetery of St. Cyriac displays this instrument in conjunction with a crown; it may also be seen upon a marble slab taken from a cemetery of the Via Latina, accompanied by a house, a fish, by a doubtful object which has been taken wrongly for a candelabrum, and by a mummy set up in a niche. A monument of the same nature represents a balance with a weight. Another example is found in the Church of St. Cecilia at Rome.
Some antiquaries have supposed that the balance is symbolical of judgment or justice. It is true that it is found, doubtless with this signification, on coins of Gordian, Diocletian, and other emperors of pagan Rome. The mediaeval artists, again, have frequently made use of this idea; for instance, in the tympanum of the great doorway of Notre Dame in Paris, and in that of the cathedral of Autun, where it may be considered as a translation in sculpture of the words of the Apocalypse Rev_22:12. But in the first two instances which we have mentioned almost the only examples transmnitted to us by Christian antiquity properly so called it is important to observe that mention is made of the contract entered into between. the purchasers of the tombs and the fossores (grave-diggers) Montanus and Calevius. It is therefore more natural to suppose that the balance symbolizes purchase and sale.
Sometimes upon tombs the balance is simply indicative of a trade; as, for example, on the slab of a Roman money-changer found in the Cemetery of St. Priscilla. Bronze balances were found in a Frankish sepulchre of the Merovingian period, where in all probability they indicated the tomb of a monetary officer, or fiscal agent or accountant of some kind. This is rendered almost certain by the fact that a balance in the Faussett collection was found in the same tomb with a touch-stone for the trial of metals. Another was found in an ancient tomb in Kent.
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.
A. R. S. Kennedy.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
The emblem of justice (Job_31:6; Psa_62:9; Pro_11:1) the test of truth and honesty. The emblem of scarcity, food being weighed out Rev_6:5). Mozenaim, "double scales" (Gen_23:16). Qaneh, "the beam of a balance" (Isa_46:6). Peles, "scales" (Isa_40:12): literally, "the beam", or else the aperture in which the tongue or beam moves.
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.
bal?ans The English word ?balance? is from the Latin bilanx = ?having two scales? (bi = ?two? and lanx = ?plate,? or ?scale?). It is used to render three Hebrew words: (1) מאזנים, mō'znayim (Lev_19:36; Job_6:2; Psa_62:9; Pro_11:1; Isa_40:12, Isa_40:15; Jer_32:10, etc.); (2) קנה, ḳāneh (Isa_46:6), and (3) פלס, peleṣ (Pro_16:11). It is found in the sing., e.g. ?a just balance? (Pro_16:11); ?a pair of balances? (Rev_6:5, etc.), as well as in the plur., e.g. ?just balances? (Lev_19:36), ?weighed in the balances? (Dan_5:27, etc.).
1. Balances Among the Ancient Hebrews; the Parts, Etc
(1) The ?balances? of the ancient Hebrews differed little, if at all, from those used by the Egyptians (Wilkinson, Anc. Egypt (1878), II, 246 f). They consisted, probably, of a horizontal bar, either pivoted on a perpendicular rod (see Erman, Aegypten, I, 615 for similar Egyptian balances), or suspended from a cord and held in the hand, the more primitive form. At the ends of the bar were pans, or hooks, from which the things to be weighed were suspended, sometimes in bags.
A good description of the more developed and final form is this: A beam with its fulcrum in the middle and its arms precisely equal. From the ends of the arms were suspended two scales, the one to receive the object to be weighed, the other the counterpoise, or weight.
(2) The weights were of stone at first and are so named in Deu_25:13 King James Version, margin. A pair of scales (the King James Version ?a pair of balances?) is used in Rev_6:5 by a figure of speech for the balance as a whole; only once is the beam so used, in Isa_46:6, literally, ?weigh silver in the beam.? Abraham, we are told (Gen_23:16), ?weighed the silver.?
2. Probably of Babylonian Origin
The basis and fountain-head of all systems of weights and measurements is to be traced, it is now thought, to Babylonia; but the primitive instruments and systems were subject to many modifications as they entered other regions and passed into the derivative systems. The Roman ?balance? is the same as our steelyard (vulgarly called ?stillyards?). Compare the Chinese, Danish, etc.
3. The System of Weighing Liable to Fraud
Though the ?balances? in ancient times were rudely constructed, the weighing could be done quite accurately, as may be seen in the use of equally primitive balances in the East today. But the system was liable to fraud. A ?false balance? might be literally one so constructed that the arms were of unequal length, when the longer arm would be intended, of course, for the article to be weighed. The system was liable, however, to various other subtle abuses then as now; hence the importance in God's sight of ?true weights? and a ?just balance? is enforced again and again (see Lev_19:36; Pro_11:1; Pro_16:11; Pro_20:23; Amo_8:5; Mic_6:11, etc.).
4. ?Wicked Balances? Condemned
?A false balance is an abomination to Yahweh? (Pro_11:1; compare Pro_20:23), and ?a just balance and scales are Yahweh's? (Pro_16:11). Hos (Hos_12:7) condemns ?the balances of deceit? in the hand of the wicked; Am (Isa_8:5 the King James Version) cries out upon ?falsifying the balances by deceit,? and Mic (Isa_6:11) denounces ?wicked balances.? Indeed, the righteousness of a just balance and true weights, and the iniquity of false ones are everywhere emphasized by the lawmakers, prophets and moral teachers of Israel, and the preacher or teacher who would expose and denounce such things in God's name today need be at no loss for texts and precedents. See WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.
Literature
Wilkinson, Ancient Egypt; Erman, Egypt; Lepsius, Denkmaler; and articles on ?Balance.? etc., in Smith, DB, EB, Jewish Encyclopedia, HDB, etc.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.
Balance [WEIGHTS AND MEASURES]
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.
Balance
as a Christian symbol. In this relation it appears sometimes upon Christian tombs. A sepulchral stone from the Cemetery of St. Cyriac displays this instrument in conjunction with a crown; it may also be seen upon a marble slab taken from a cemetery of the Via Latina, accompanied by a house, a fish, by a doubtful object which has been taken wrongly for a candelabrum, and by a mummy set up in a niche. A monument of the same nature represents a balance with a weight. Another example is found in the Church of St. Cecilia at Rome.
Some antiquaries have supposed that the balance is symbolical of judgment or justice. It is true that it is found, doubtless with this signification, on coins of Gordian, Diocletian, and other emperors of pagan Rome. The mediaeval artists, again, have frequently made use of this idea; for instance, in the tympanum of the great doorway of Notre Dame in Paris, and in that of the cathedral of Autun, where it may be considered as a translation in sculpture of the words of the Apocalypse Rev_22:12. But in the first two instances which we have mentioned almost the only examples transmnitted to us by Christian antiquity properly so called it is important to observe that mention is made of the contract entered into between. the purchasers of the tombs and the fossores (grave-diggers) Montanus and Calevius. It is therefore more natural to suppose that the balance symbolizes purchase and sale.
Sometimes upon tombs the balance is simply indicative of a trade; as, for example, on the slab of a Roman money-changer found in the Cemetery of St. Priscilla. Bronze balances were found in a Frankish sepulchre of the Merovingian period, where in all probability they indicated the tomb of a monetary officer, or fiscal agent or accountant of some kind. This is rendered almost certain by the fact that a balance in the Faussett collection was found in the same tomb with a touch-stone for the trial of metals. Another was found in an ancient tomb in Kent.
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.
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