BALANCE. The Hebrew word usually ren dered balance' in the A. V. is (moznaim, and Chald. Ntim Dan. v. 27, LXX. crae,u.6s, o-rabvia, Vulg. thilances'), a word derived from TV 'be weighed.' The dual form spews that the ordinary balance with scales is intended. Another word translated 'balance' is LXX.
Vulg. statera (Ps. lxii. 9), by which many suppose that an instrument like our steelyard is intended. That the steelyard was an invention known to the ancients is certain, for specimens of them, elaborately adorned, have been found at Pompeii and Hercu laneum (Alus. Borbon. i. 55). Still it was probably not known until the Roman era, and indeed is said to have been called Trutina Campana, from its invention in Campania (Diet. of Ant. s.v.
No traces of its use have been found either in the tombs or temples of Egypt or Assyria, and this is a sufficient proof that the instrument was unknown in those countries. The only reason for supposing that the Jews were acquainted with it is the con trast between C)8 and in Is. xl. 12; Prov. xvi. II. It is clear that our translators supposed :he words to be synonymous, for they have rendered peles' by 'scales,' which would certainly have been the more appropriate rendering of moznaim.' The meaning of the verse is not that n steelyard' was used for the great mountains, while the lesser hills were all thrown together into scales,' but merely that God meted the elevations of the world with exactest reference to the good of its inhabi tants. It is therefcire better with Kimchi (on Is.
xxvi. 7), to understand by I:6B, not a steelyard, but the iron beam of the balance. The variation of the term, although the same is meant, occurs constantly in Hebrew poetry. Athird word, lip 'reed,' is once rendered balance' (Is. xlvi. 6), and here undoubtedly the word means the beam,' which is used by synecdoche for the balance itself. Balances are only once mentioned in the New Testament (Rev. vi. 5, s'iryov).
Before the introduction of coins balances were of the importance for the weighing of gold and silver in every commercial transaction (Gen. xxiii. 16; xliii. 21; Is. xlvi. 6; Jer. xxxii. '9), so that a balance was required to be of exquisite delicacy. Allusions to this are found in Is. xl. 15, Ecclus. xxviii. 25, small dust of the balance,' a little grain of the balance ;' and all dishonesty in the treatment of the scales is sternly forbidden and denounced (Lev. xix. 35; Hos. xii. 7; Am. viii. 5; Mic. vi. I I ; Prov. xi. I ; xvi. i r). Hence arose the Rabbinic rule that the scales should be made of marble which could not wear away. In Dan. v. 27 some have seen an allusion to the curiouseOri ental custom of weighzug a king against quantities of gold and silver, a custom mentioned in Sir T.
Roe's Voyage to India (Taylor's Calmet, Frag. 186), but in all probability the expression is quite general. The phrase weights of the bag' (Prov. xvi. II), alludes to the Jewish custom of carrying balances and weights at the girdle in a sort of pouch (Chardin's Voyages, iii. 422). The weights used were stones vin i), hence the marginal read ing, a perfect stone,' in Prov. xi. 1. Fraudulent dealers carried two sets of stones, of which one was of lighter weight. This dishonesty is exposed in Dent. xxv. 13. Thou shalt not carry in thy bag ():•41 InN) a stone and a stone,' i. e., divers weights, as in A. V. For the earliest known weight rwtyp, (Kesitah, Gen. xxxiii. 19; Job xlii. piece A. V., lamb' marg.), and all other particu lars respecting weights as mentioned in the Bible, see WEIGHTS. The Jews do not seem to have had any officers whose especial duty it was to superin tend weighing transactions like the Quebbaneh or public weighers of Egypt, the Greek s'try6crrarat (Artemid. ii. 37), or Latin libnpendes (Plin. xxxiii. 3), but care was always taken that the money used should be of full weight' (Gen. xliii. 21).
The Jews must evidently from the earliest ages have been acquainted with balances of ingenious construction, for they were known to the Egyp tians earlier than to other nations, although even among the Greeks, the invention of a particular kind of balance (where the equalization of opposite lots is ascertained by a plummet), is ascribed by Pliny to the mythical age of Daedalus. A balance of this kind was iu use among the Egyptians as early as the time of Osirtasen, the cotemporary of Joseph.
In Sir G. Wilkinson's Aye. Egypt will be found a description of several balances of great antiquity. In the common balance the beam passed through a ring suspended from a horizontal rod immediately above and parallel to it, and when equally balanced, the ring, which allowed the beam to play freely, shewed when the scales were equally poised, and prevented the beam from tilting when goods were taken out of one scale and yet suffered to remain in the other. To the lower part of the ring a small plummet was fixed, and this being touched and found to hang freely, shewed, without looking at the beam, that the weight was just' (Ave. iii. 239, and Plate 234). A figure of Thoth, under the shape of a baboon, was often placed at the top of the balance as an emblematical ornament; and the instrument occasionally appears in death scenes as a type of judgment (Ibid. and ii. so). .
It is probable that the Jews knew the constella tion Libra as one of the signs of the Zodiac. (2 Kings xxiii. 5; Job xxxviii. 32.) [ASTRONOMY.] —F. W. F.