What Does Proverbs 20:23 Mean?
To the LORD, stones are a recoiling thing, and scales of deceit are not good.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Divers weights are an abomination unto the LORD; and a false balance is not good.THE KEY
The weights are literally “stone and stone” (אֶבֶן וָאָבֶן, ʾeven vaʾeven), exposing how a pair presented as equivalent can secretly serve two standards.
THE MEANING
The verse exposes a quiet harm: a system can look exact while its measures shift to favor whoever controls them. The LORD regards this double standard as abhorrent; a polished appearance does not make the measure good.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A fair-looking procedure is not necessarily fair; precision can conceal a rigged standard.
THE ROOT
מִרְמָה
mirmāh
GROWS FROM
ר־מ־ה
r-m-h
Deceive; act treacherously.
“scales of deceit” in this verse is mirmāh. The verse calls its weights אֶבֶן וָאָבֶן (ʾeven vaʾeven, “stone and stone”) and names the scales מִרְמָה (mirmāh, “deceit”). The root links the false appearance to the act of deceiving: dishonesty is built into the measure itself.
ALSO GROWS
ramah: To deceive or deal treacherously.
רָמָה
This verb names the act concealed inside the apparently ordinary weighing.
remiyyah: Deceit; slackness.
רְמִיָּה
This related form shows deception as a quality that can settle into how a measure is handled.
THE PATTERN
A measure is never morally neutral: what it hides or gives becomes part of the judgment it carries.
Scales of deceit are an abomination to the LORD, but a whole stone is his delight.Scales and stones of alignment, an ephah and a hin of alignment, you shall have; I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged, and with what measure you measure, it will be measured to you.THE THREAD
Scales of deceit are an abomination to the LORD, but a whole stone is his delight.Proverbs 11:1 repeats מֹאזְנֵי מִרְמָה (moznei mirmāh, “scales of deceit”), the same phrase behind this verse’s “false balance.” Together, the verses expose the mechanism: a scale may look neutral, while deceit turns ordinary exchange into injustice.
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