What Does Deuteronomy 25:13 Mean in the King James?
Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The deception is not a false stone but two real stones kept in one bag for two different standards.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks wherever one person or community keeps two measures in reach: one for this case, another for that one. Both weights may be genuine, yet the hidden choice makes the judgment crooked. What is held in the bag becomes a test of whether one standard governs every weighing.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the claim that a measure is fair simply because the instrument is legitimate; fairness breaks when the same hand keeps two measures and chooses between them.
THE ROOT
אֶבֶן
even
GROWS FROM
אבן
Stone; here, a stone used as a weight.
“weights” in this verse is even. The Hebrew repeats the word as “a stone and a stone,” leaving visible that both measures are real stones; the concealed difference is their size. The word also invites the sound-play av (אָב, father) + ben (בֵּן, son): a measure carried forward can carry the image of what one generation hands to another. The wrongness lies in keeping two standards where one measure should govern.
ALSO GROWS
avnei kis: Stones of a bag; weights kept in a bag.
אַבְנֵי כִּיס
Proverbs 16:11 uses this same image of stones in a bag, showing that the bag carries the means of weighing.
even pinnah: Cornerstone.
אֶבֶן פִּנָּה
A stone can establish alignment; here, the weight tests whether the measure stays aligned.
even negef: Stumbling stone.
אֶבֶן נֶגֶף
A stone can become an obstacle through how it is used, just as a real weight becomes deceptive when selected to change the measure.
THE PATTERN
A measure reveals the standard of the one who uses it, and judgment answers to the measure it applies.
Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure.A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight.For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.THE THREAD
A just weight and balance are the LORD’s: all the weights of the bag are his work.This verse reuses the image of the bag’s stones: the Hebrew phrase for “weights of the bag” shares the words אֶבֶן (even, stone) and כִּיס (kis, bag) with the image here. The measure in the hand is not a private convention; Deuteronomy exposes the divided standard as a breach of what weighing is for.
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