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Lizzie Eaton's Scales
Proverbs 11:1 says, "The Lord abhors dishonest scales, but accurate weights are his delight." You might be surprised at how often God speaks of this kind of thing in the OT but he took such matters with the utmost seriousness and even (implicitly) threatened exile if the nation practiced dishonesty of this kind (see Deuteronomy 25:13-16 as a single illustration from among many).
When I was a boy digital scales were unknown. Most shops had scales with bright shiny scoop containers (usually polished brass) on one side and a flat plate on which they'd set various weights made of iron or brass. The sweets, lentils or potatoes or whatever went into the scoop and the weights were put on the plate to balance the scale. [I actually bought a set and kept them for some years until our daughter talked me out of them. I loved those little shiny scoops and brass weights. Life's funny isn't it?]
Lizzie Eaton was a tiny woman and her husband Jim was a big burly man. They were both the salt of the earth kind of people and they ran a little corner shop that sold mostly foodstuffs and such—it was a supermarket you could have squeezed into an elevator. Lizzie did everything with speed and Jim was slow. She could take care of three or four while he was still working with one so we kids always hoped it wouldn't be Jim that'd serve us. He had an ample protruding tummy and really large ears (I mean "large") that sat close to his head—as children we were in awe of their size but for all their size he was very hard of hearing. That was part of the reason he was slow and a major reason we always hoped Lizzie would tend to us. He had a big jolly face with puffed out cheeks that still tended to sag and when he was dealing with the money at the till he was engrossed (there was none of the fancy facilities on the old registers and Jim had to concentrate). He would stand with the money in his hand—shaking it up and down gently as if he were trying to guess its weight, looking from the money to the register and then back to the money, murmuring to himself as he worked it out.
Lizzie had the entire picture of course so (particularly when the shop had a lot of people in) every now and then she'd take the money from him and shove him aside with her shoulder and deal with the matter herself. There was nothing rude about it and Jim always calmly submitted to her "interference" without any facial or tonal sign that it bothered him and he'd stand looking over her shoulder while she took care of it. It often had a look on his face that suggested he was learning how to do it. Poor thing. I sort of think that half the time he was hoping she'd take over since he reached his limit very quickly. Once in a while she would add a few extra sweets or whatever it was to the scale, always with a quick glance to see if we saw her do it—we always did and she knew we were chuffed. We always got good value!
I can with consummate ease imagine God going into Lizzie Eaton's shop to watch her at work, grinning widely with pleasure and after a while leaning over the counter and whispering in her ear, "Lizzie, you do great work. You make me very happy."
As the Deuteronomy text shows, an Israelite wasn't only forbidden to use false scales—he was forbidden to own them since they can serve no purpose but to cheat people. To possess false scales was a commitment to cheating; it said of the man that he purposed to cheat repeatedly and that goes much deeper than simply cheating.
The reverse is also true. If she were there today and I stood on a corner and watched people going into Lizzie's I would be assured that because she had honest scales and only honest scales that she was committed to fairness. No matter who went into the shop, tall or short, fat or thin, well or shabbily dressed, handsome or plain, educated or ignorant, pious or pagan—Lizzie had committed to each one of them that they'd be treated fairly!
Wherever else they might go and be cheated it wouldn't happen in her shop! God does more than nod a sober approval of this kind of purposed, consistent honesty—he delights in it!
How pleased he must be that there are places where people can go and be assured that they'll receive cheerful and fair treatment.
If you're one of those, thank you and God bless you.
[I borrowed the heart of this from my little book Celebrating the Wrath of God. Permission given by Waterbrook Press, Colorado, a division of Random House.)
