Balance scales

The balance scales were an instrument for weighing objects. Ancient balance scales often consisted of a rod held by a cord or a chain in the middle and with pans attached to both ends.

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Weights were placed in one pan, while the items to be weighed were placed in the other. When the rod was parallel to the ground, then the items in the two pans were of equal weight.

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“Balance scales” may be rendered in some languages as “tool for weighing” or “instrument for knowing how much something weighs.” The translator should avoid using an anachronistic word for modern types of scales, such as a spring scale or a hydraulic scale.

Weights (and also measures of volume) from different time periods have been uncovered in various archaeological sites. The weights generally were made of stone, were spherical in shape, and were identified by having their names engraved on them. Because of their rustic manufacture, they were not “accurate” or “just” in a precise modern sense. However, they served as normative standards in a given period and region, although they differed according to time and place. For this reason the equivalents in terms of modern weights are only approximate.

Because the ancient scale compared the relative weights of two objects, in the intertestamental period it became a symbol for considering the relative value or right and wrong of two activities or choices. Compare the English idiom “weigh his actions.” This figurative usage appears in SIR 1:22; SIR 21:25; SIR 28:25; and to a slightly lesser extent in DAN 5:27. Translators will often prefer to abandon the physical object and translate according to the meaning; compare GNT at SIR 21:25, which reads “the wise will consider the consequences of what they say.” Similarly, at SIR 1:22, instead of the literal text “a man’s anger tips the scale to his ruin” (RSV), GNT has “it [anger] can bring about your downfall.”