Hosea 12:7
New International Version
The merchant uses dishonest scales and loves to defraud.

New Living Translation
But no, the people are like crafty merchants selling from dishonest scales— they love to cheat.

English Standard Version
A merchant, in whose hands are false balances, he loves to oppress.

Berean Standard Bible
A merchant loves to defraud with dishonest scales in his hands.

King James Bible
He is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loveth to oppress.

New King James Version
“A cunning Canaanite! Deceitful scales are in his hand; He loves to oppress.

New American Standard Bible
A merchant, in whose hands are fraudulent balances, Loves to exploit.

NASB 1995
A merchant, in whose hands are false balances, He loves to oppress.

NASB 1977
A merchant, in whose hands are false balances, He loves to oppress.

Legacy Standard Bible
A merchant, in whose hands are deceptive balances, He loves to oppress.

Amplified Bible
A merchant, in whose hand are false and fraudulent balances; He loves to oppress and exploit.

Christian Standard Bible
A merchant loves to extort with dishonest scales in his hands.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
A merchant loves to extort with dishonest scales in his hands.

American Standard Version
He is a trafficker, the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loveth to oppress.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
A scale of deceit is in the hand of Canaan; he loves to oppress

Brenton Septuagint Translation
As for Chanaan, in his hand is a balance of unrighteousness: he has loved to tyrannize.

Contemporary English Version
Israel, you enjoy cheating and taking advantage of others.

Douay-Rheims Bible
He is like Chanaan, there is a deceitful balance in his hand, he hath loved oppression.

English Revised Version
He is a trafficker, the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loveth to oppress.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
[The LORD says,] "The merchants use dishonest scales. They love to cheat people.

Good News Translation
The LORD says, "The people of Israel are as dishonest as the Canaanites; they love to cheat their customers with false scales.

International Standard Version
"Now as for the merchant, deceitful balances remain in his hand, and he loves to defraud.

JPS Tanakh 1917
As for the trafficker, the balances of deceit are in his hand. He loveth to oppress.

Literal Standard Version
Canaan! In his hand [are] balances of deceit! He has loved to oppress.

Majority Standard Bible
A merchant loves to defraud with dishonest scales in his hands.

New American Bible
A merchant who holds a false balance, he loves to extort!

NET Bible
The businessmen love to cheat; they use dishonest scales.

New Revised Standard Version
A trader, in whose hands are false balances, he loves to oppress.

New Heart English Bible
A merchant has dishonest scales in his hand. He loves to defraud.

Webster's Bible Translation
He is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loveth to oppress.

World English Bible
A merchant has dishonest scales in his hand. He loves to defraud.

Young's Literal Translation
Canaan! in his hand are balances of deceit! To oppress he hath loved.

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
A Reproof of Ephraim, Judah, Jacob
6But you must return to your God, maintaining love and justice, and always waiting on your God. 7A merchant loves to defraud with dishonest scales in his hands. 8And Ephraim boasts: “How rich I have become! I have found wealth for myself. In all my labors, they can find in me no iniquity that is sinful.”…

Cross References
Proverbs 11:1
Dishonest scales are an abomination to the LORD, but an accurate weight is His delight.

Ezekiel 28:5
By your great skill in trading you have increased your wealth, but your heart has grown proud because of it.

Amos 8:5
asking, "When will the New Moon be over, that we may sell grain? When will the Sabbath end, that we may market wheat? Let us reduce the ephah and increase the shekel; let us cheat with dishonest scales.

Micah 6:11
Can I excuse dishonest scales or bags of false weights?

Zechariah 5:8
"This is Wickedness," he said. And he shoved her down into the basket, pushing down the lead cover over its opening.


Treasury of Scripture

He is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loves to oppress.

a merchant.

Ezekiel 16:3
And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite.

Zechariah 14:21
Yea, every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be holiness unto the LORD of hosts: and all they that sacrifice shall come and take of them, and seethe therein: and in that day there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of the LORD of hosts.

John 2:16
And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise.

the balances.

Leviticus 19:35,36
Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure…

Proverbs 11:1
A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight.

Proverbs 16:11
A just weight and balance are the LORD'S: all the weights of the bag are his work.

he loveth.

Isaiah 3:5
And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable.

Ezekiel 22:29
The people of the land have used oppression, and exercised robbery, and have vexed the poor and needy: yea, they have oppressed the stranger wrongfully.

Amos 2:7
That pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek: and a man and his father will go in unto the same maid, to profane my holy name:

oppress.

1 Samuel 12:3
Behold, here I am: witness against me before the LORD, and before his anointed: whose ox have I taken? or whose ass have I taken? or whom have I defrauded? whom have I oppressed? or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blind mine eyes therewith? and I will restore it you.

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Balances Canaan Deceit Defraud Dishonest Hand Hands Loves Merchant Oppress Pleasure Scales Trader Trafficker Twisted Uses
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Balances Canaan Deceit Defraud Dishonest Hand Hands Loves Merchant Oppress Pleasure Scales Trader Trafficker Twisted Uses
Hosea 12
1. A reproof of Ephraim, Judah, and Jacob.
3. By former favors he exhorts to repentance.
7. Ephraim's sins provoke God.














(7) He is a merchant.--The vivid and fierce light of the prophet's words is obscured in the English version. The rendering "he is a merchant" originates from the fact that Canaan (rendered "merchant") is often used predominantly of Ph?nicia, and Canaanites of Ph?nicians, the great trading race (Isaiah 23:11; Job 40:30). Translate: As for Canaan, in his hand are false balances. He loves cheating. The descendants of Canaan (the son of Ham, the abhorred son of Noah) became in their whole career a curse and a bye-word in every religious and ethical sense. The princes of Tyre, the merchandise of Ph?nicia, were, perhaps, then in the prophet's mind. (Comp. Ezekiel 27)

Moreover, the prophet hints that Ephraim had imbibed Ph?nicia's love of gain and habits of unscrupulous trade. The literature of this period contains frequent references to these tendencies in Israel (Amos 2:6; Amos 8:5; Micah 6:10).

Verses 7-14 contain a fresh description of Israel's apostasy. To this the prophet is led by the preceding train of thought. When he called to mind the earnestness of the patriarch to obtain the blessing, the sincerity of his repentance, and the evidences of conversion, consisting in mercy and judgment and constant waiting on God, he looks around on Israel, and finding those virtues conspicuous by their absence., he repeats the story of their degeneracy. Verse 7. - He is a merchant (margin, Canaan), the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loveth to oppress. This verse is more exactly rendered, Canaan is he, in his hand are the balances of deceit: he loveth to oppress. How the sons have degenerated from the sire! No longer do we see Jacob wrestling in prayer with the angel of the covenant, and knighted in the field with the name of Israel, or "prince with God;" but a fraudulent merchant Kenaan, seeking to aggrandize himself by cheating and oppression. His conduct is the opposite of what God requires; instead of the mercy and judgment and trust in God enjoined in the preceding verse, we have the Canaanitish (Phoenician) trader, with his false scales in his hand and the love of oppression in his heart. The word Kenaan sometimes denotes Canaan, the son of Ham, and ancestor of the Canaanitish nation; sometimes the land of Canaan, or lowlands (from כָּנַע, bow the knee, γονυ γνυ γνυπετεῖν, genu, knee; then "to be low" or "depressed") as opposed to אֲרָם, or" highlands" (from רוּם, to be high); sometimes Phoenicia, the northern part of Canaan; also, from the Canaanites or Phoenicians having been famous as merchants, a man of Canaan, or any merchant, so Job 40:30 and Proverbs 31:24, just as Kasdi Chaldaean is applied to an astrologer. At the time of Hosea, the Phoenicians were the great merchants who had the commerce of the world in their hand. Canaan is thus a figurative designation of Ephraim in their degenerate condition as indicated by the false balances and love of oppression. The verse is well explained by Theodoret: "And thou, Ephraim, imitating

(1) the wickedness of Canaan, hast an unjust balance of mind: thou despisest justice, thou greedily desirest unjust power, thou art high-minded in rich, S, and dost arrogate to thyself very much in prescribing and determining the conditions thereof." Rashi more briefly remarks, "Ye depend upon your wealth because ye are merchants and defraud; and of your riches ye say, 'Yet I have become rich, and shall not serve the Holy One;'" while Kimchi marks the contrast between Israel as he ought to be and Israel as he actually is, thus: "But thou art not so (i.e. practicing love and righteousness), but thou art like the Canaanite, i.e. as

(2) the merchant, in whose hand is the deceitful balance." The character of the Phoenician trader is thus given in the 'Odyssey' - "A false Phoenician of insidious mind, Vers'd in vile arts, and foe to humankind." But, in addition to secret fraud, open violence is here charged against Israel.

Parallel Commentaries ...


Hebrew
A merchant
כְּנַ֗עַן (kə·na·‘an)
Noun - proper - masculine singular
Strong's 3667: Canaan -- a son of Ham, also his descendants and their land West of the Jordan

loves
אָהֵֽב׃ (’ā·hêḇ)
Verb - Qal - Perfect - third person masculine singular
Strong's 157: To have affection f

to defraud
לַעֲשֹׁ֥ק (la·‘ă·šōq)
Preposition-l | Verb - Qal - Infinitive construct
Strong's 6231: To press upon, oppress, defraud, violate, overflow

with dishonest
מִרְמָ֖ה (mir·māh)
Noun - feminine singular
Strong's 4820: Deceit, treachery

scales
מֹאזְנֵ֥י (mō·zə·nê)
Noun - mdc
Strong's 3976: A pair of scales

in his hands.
בְּיָד֛וֹ (bə·yā·ḏōw)
Preposition-b | Noun - feminine singular construct | third person masculine singular
Strong's 3027: A hand


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OT Prophets: Hosea 12:7 A merchant has dishonest scales in his (Ho Hs Hos.)
Hosea 12:6
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