Deuteronomy 25:13 - Meaning and Application

Here is a law against dishonest weights and measures. The people were not only forbidden to use them, but also to keep them at all, not even in a bag or in the house (Deuteronomy 25:13, Deuteronomy 25:14). If they had them nearby, they would be strongly tempted to use them. They were not to keep one large weight and measure for buying and a smaller one for selling, because that would cheat both ways, and either kind of cheating was bad enough. We see the same sin in those who made the ephah smaller for selling grain and the shekel larger for receiving payment (Amos 8:5). Instead, they were to have a full and honest weight, because the standard of justice must itself be just. If the standard is dishonest, then it becomes a steady way of cheating.

This law had already been given before (Leviticus 19:35, 36). It is backed by two strong reasons. First, justice and fairness bring God’s blessing. The way to have long life and prosperity is to deal honestly in all our dealings. Honesty is the best policy. Second, fraud and injustice bring God’s curse (Deuteronomy 25:16). Not only wrongdoing itself, but everyone who acts wrongly, is hateful to the Lord. How miserable the person is whom his Maker rejects. Scripture often shows how hateful deceit is to God (Proverbs 11:1; 20:10, 23), and the apostle says that the Lord will punish those who cheat or overreach in any matter (1 Thessalonians 4:6).

Here is also a law for the destruction of Amalek. God would measure to Amalek as Amalek had measured to Israel.

The wrong Amalek did to Israel was to be remembered (Deuteronomy 25:17, 18). When it first happened, God ordered it to be written down (Exodus 17:14-16), and here he orders that the memory of it be kept alive. This was not for personal revenge, because that generation had passed away, and the people now living could not seek revenge for injuries they themselves had not suffered. It was for God’s honor, because Amalek had insulted him, the King whose throne they had lifted their hand against.

The conduct of Amalek toward Israel was very shameful. They had no good reason to fight them, and they gave no warning or formal challenge. Instead, they attacked by surprise when Israel had just come out of slavery and seemed to be traveling only to worship God in the wilderness. Their attack was also cruel, because they struck the weak and the weary, the very people they should have helped. The most cowardly people are often the most cruel, while those who have true courage will usually also show compassion. Their attack was also godless, because they did not fear God. If they had any respect for the God of Israel, whose presence they had seen in the cloud, or any fear of his judgment, which they had heard about in Egypt, they would not have dared to attack. God takes what is done against his people as done against himself. He will especially judge those who harm new and weak believers, Satan’s agents who try to turn them aside, trouble them, or offend his little ones.

This wrong would be punished in due time (Deuteronomy 25:19). After Israel had finished the wars needed to establish their kingdom and widen their borders, they were to go to war against Amalek. Their task was not just to drive them away, but to destroy them and wipe out their memory. God’s long delay showed his patience, which should have led Amalek to repent. Yet the later destruction of Amalek’s descendants, so long after the original sin, showed how seriously God counts attacks against his people. All the world could see that whoever touches God’s people touches the apple of his eye.

It was almost 400 years later that Saul was commanded to carry out this sentence (1 Samuel 15). He was rejected by God because he did not do it fully and spared some of that condemned nation. In doing so, he ignored not only Samuel’s specific instructions, but also this command given long before through Moses, which he could not have failed to know. David later inflicted more damage on them, and in Hezekiah’s time the Simeonites struck down the rest who remained (1 Chronicles 4:43). When God judges, he will prevail.