God's Word to the Princes of Israel (Ezekiel 45:9-25).
The Need For The Prince To Ensure Justice and Fair Weights and Measures.
‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh, “Let it be enough for you, O princes of Israel. Remove violence and spoil, and execute judgment and justice. Take away your evictions from my people,” says the Lord Yahweh. “You shall have just balances, and a just ephah, and a just bath. The ephah and the bath shall be of one measure, that the bath may contain the tenth part of a homer, and the ephah the tenth part of a homer. Their measure shall be in terms of the homer. And the shekel shall be twenty gerars. Twenty shekels plus twenty five shekels plus fifteen shekels shall be your maneh.”
This kind of cry was common among the prophets, for Israelite society brought dishonour on Yahweh and his covenant by their social behaviour. The princes of the future are to ensure righteousness in the land. They are to be satisfied with their own land, and ensure proper justice throughout Israel. They are to prevent violence and looting, and to ensure that men receive true justice and right judgments, and that the poor are not evicted by the rich for no good reason (compare Leviticus 19:13-15; Isaiah 3:14-15; Amos 3:10; Amos 6:3-6; James 5:1-6). They are to ensure true and correct weights and measures, and honesty in monetary exchange (compare Leviticus 19:35-36; Deuteronomy 25:13-16; Proverbs 11:1; Amos 8:5; Micah 6:10-12). These latter were a continual problem. Ancient balances had a wide margin of error and it is rare archaeologically to find two weights that agree. It was simple therefore to cheat the poor and helpless.
A homer meant originally a donkey load and came to mean approximately 220 litres (just over 48 gallons). An ephah was a vessel large enough to hold a person (Zechariah 5:6-10), and was used for measuring cereals. The bath was used for measuring liquids. The latter two were to be equivalent measures, one tenth of a homer.
The sixty shekels to a maneh was in accordance with usage in Babylonia. There is evidence of a fifty shekel maneh in pre-exilic times (compare Genesis 23:15; Exo 30:24; 1 Samuel 17:5; Numbers 31:50, which all seem to point to the existence of a fifty shekel maneh) which explains the need for Ezekiel's detailed explanation.