Verse 10. - The exhortation addressed to the princes to practice justice and judgment now extends itself so as to include their subjects, who are required, in all their commercial dealings, to have just balances and just measures - a just ephah for dry goods, and a just bath for liquids (compare the prescriptions in Leviticus 19:35, 36 and Deuteronomy 25:13 - 15, and contrast the practices in Hosea 12:7; Amos 8:5; Micah 6:10, 11; see also Proverbs 16:11).
45:1-25 In the period here foretold, the worship and the ministers of God will be provided for; the princes will rule with justice, as holding their power under Christ; the people will live in peace, ease, and godliness. These things seem to be represented in language taken from the customs of the times in which the prophet wrote. Christ is our Passover that is sacrificed for us: we celebrate the memorial of that sacrifice, and feast upon it, triumphing in our deliverance out of the Egyptian slavery of sin, and our preservation from the destroying sword of Divine justice, in the Lord's supper, which is our passover feast; as the whole Christian life is, and must be, the feast of the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Ye shall have just balances,.... That is, take care that true weights and just measures be used in trade and commerce, that so one man may not impose upon and cheat another; which is the business of the civil magistrate to look after:
and a just ephah, and a just bath; and not make the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit, as some did, Amos 8:5 the "ephah" was a measure for dry things, as wheat, barley, &c. and the "bath" for liquid things, as wine oil, &c. as Jarchi and Kimchi observe; see Leviticus 19:35.
and a just ephah, and a just bath; and not make the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit, as some did, Amos 8:5 the "ephah" was a measure for dry things, as wheat, barley, &c. and the "bath" for liquid things, as wine oil, &c. as Jarchi and Kimchi observe; see Leviticus 19:35.