Balance (Hastings' Dictionary)

Weighing was per formed from early times in Egypt, and was probably thence borrowed by the Hebrews. All Oriental balances were equal-armed, the principle of lever- age in the steelyard having been apparently an Italian invention, carried into the East under Roman influence. In Egypt before the Exodus, balances of all sizes were employed ; the larger ones having a fixed pole for support, a beam of several feet in length, and large scale pans hung by cords.

To test the evenness of the balance a tongue was attached to it, but instead of observing the tongue against a long vertical sling of the balance, as in modern times, the ancient tongue was below the beam, and the verticality of it (and evenness of the beam) was observed against a plummet. As the plummet was easily set swinging by a lurch of the stand, the characteristic action shown in weighing ie for the man to steady the plummet with his hand in order to read its position.

Smaller balances were held in the hand, hung by a cord. The beam was BALANCB BEAM, WOOD. a circular bar, tapering to the ends ; the suspension was by a hole through it, or sometimes merely by a string tied around it, which would give great opening for fraud ; the pans were hung by cords, which passed through slanting holes cut in the beam, emerging in the width of the ends. In OT the balance appears as a regular article of daily use.

Abraham weighs four hundred shekels of silver for the field of Ephron (Gn 23") ; and soon after Eliezer gives weighed jewellery, an earring of half a shekel and two bracelets of ten shekels, to Rebekah. The total weight of the gold, silver, and bronze used for the tabernacle is all stated (Ex 38, '"^) ; and the weight of the offerings made at the dedication (Nu 7" etc.)

And this is quite in accord with the style of the elaborate summaries of weights which the Egyptian scribes used to reckon up at this period. This preciseness of weighing, however, seems to have been lost to the Hebrews in Pal.

, as there is no record of the weighing of metal for the temple, and Daviil mentions quantities in the vaguest manner (1 Ch 22"), while the habit of using the balance seems to have revived in the later and more commercial times, to judge by the frequent mention of it in late books. The falsification of the balance was common among the Hebrews aa shown by continual denuncia- tions of the practice.

In Leviticus just balances are enjoined (19*'), as by Ezekiel (45'") ; and Amos (8'), Micah (6"), and the Proverbs (11') specially inveigh against false balances. The exactness of the balance was even considered a divine matter, as well as the precision of the weights (Pr 16"). For these references to the standards, see Weights AND Measures. W. M. Flindkrs Petrik.