Proverbs 20b

 There are proverbs scattered through this chapter and beyond that fall into a category we would call ‘economics’ or ‘business’. Of course, those are our categories for dividing up life, not the same as Israelites speaking Hebrew 3000 years ago. They would have been more holistic, since God is that way. God won’t allow them or us to shrug off bad behavior with the justification: ‘It’s just business.’

What are ‘business’ proverbs? First, there are a couple of proverbs that also fit some proverbs in our culture.

20: 4 & 13. The lazy person does not plow in season;

Harvest cinema and there is nothing to be found. 

Do not love sleep, or else you will come to poverty,

Open your eyes, and you will have plenty of bread. 

In a farm community, this proverb is not difficult to understand. As Solomon’s other work says: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: … a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what has been planted” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2). 

I remember hoping for a break in the spring rains, getting up at 5;00 and in the field driving tractor by 6:00, then working til dark, trying to get the corn and soybeans planted. Fall, harvest-time, is different. The first few hours of the day are spent unloading trucks that sat overnight, greasing the combine, checking all the machinery, while the sun evaporates the dew off the crop. So, actual shelling corn or combining soybeans wouldn’t start until around 10:00 a.m. To everything there is a season, and each season has its own practices. 

These proverbs are generalizations, of course, and they depend on people being able to work and there being jobs that they can do. So, there is no justification for a hard-and-fast rule that if you don’t work, you don’t eat. We do take care of our sick and enfeebled. There are other proverbs that tell us that. 

20: 10 & 23. Diverse weights and diverse measures are both alike

an abomination to the LORD.

Differing weights are an abomination to the LORD, 

and false scales are not good. 

Ask yourself this question: ‘If these practices were not common at the time, why would Solomon mention them in a treatise about wisdom?’ Answer: ‘He wouldn’t’.

Apparently, fraudulent business practices have been around since Adam and Eve tried to tip the scales in their favor in the Garden. The first description of a proper transaction comes in the story of Abraham buying a field and cave to bury his wife, Sarah. “Abraham agreed with Ephron, and Abraham weighed out for Ephron the silver that he had named in the hearing of the Hittites, four hundred shekels of silver, according to the weights current among the merchants” (Genesis 23: 16). Notice the care with which the story-teller confirms that these were honest measures that were in use at the time.

Still, there must have been dishonest merchants around, because several centuries later God installed these warnings in the Law. “You shall have honest balances, honest weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin; I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 19: 36, see also Deuteronomy 25: 13). 

Proverbs has mentioned this problem before. “A false balance is an abomination to the LORD, but an accurate weight is his delight” (Proverbs 11: 1). A little later, in a context of warning kings to do good and not to do evil, Solomon says: “Honest balances and scales are the LORD’s; all the weights in the bag are his work. It is an abomination to kings to do evil, for the throne is established in righteousness” (Proverbs 16: 11-12). 

Fair play is obviously important to God, so we might ask where and how these admonitions apply to us. In business, we have seen recently how repackaging foods in the same size boxes but with less product for the same price has become a common practice. In politics, we have seen how legislatures gerrymander voting maps so that their party will win the most districts and minority voters will be disenfranchised. In the insurance business, we have seen how companies are constantly recalculating risk in order to trim off the statistical outliers, even though the houses most prone to storms and the people most prone to sickness turn out to be the most needy in our society. 

Through the prophet Amos, God told Israel he was on to their false worship and false economic practices.. 

 “Hear this, you who trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, saying, ‘When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah smaller and the shekel heavier and practice deceit with false balances, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and selling the sweepings of the wheat’. The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: ‘Surely I will never forget any of their deeds’” (Amos 8: 4-7). 

That was the reason for the defeat and destruction of Jerusalem. God punished the rich and powerful in Israel severely for tipping the scales in their favor. There are many ways to do this, including fraud, bait and switch, and outright cooking the books. Then there are practices of red-lining, denying loans on racial grounds, and squeezing every cent out of workers’ pay, or not paying them at all. 

I return to one of my favorite verses about how unfair business practices can create classes in society, and how they can be undone. Remember that Paul gave us the measure of a good, godly society. 

“... but it is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance. As it is written, ‘the one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little’” (II Corinthians 14-15).