*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Shall I count them pure? - Rather, (as the English margin) "Shall I be pure?" The prophet takes for the time their person and bids them judge themselves in him. If it would defile me, how are ye, with all your other sins, not defiled? All these things were expressly forbidden in the law. "Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in mete-yard, in weight or in measure. Just balances, just weights, a just ephah and a just him, shall ye have" Leviticus 19:35-36; and, "Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small. Thou shalt not have in thine house divers measures, a great and a small. For all that do such things, and all that do unrighteousness are an abomination unto the Lord thy God" (Deuteronomy 25:13, Deuteronomy 25:15-16, add Proverbs 11:1; Proverbs 16:11; Proverbs 20:10). Yet are not these things common even now?
Shall I count them pure with the wicked balances,.... These are the words either of the prophet, or rather of God, signifying that he could not, and would not, allow, countenance, and approve of persons that used false scales or balances; or justify and reckon them just, as they would be thought to be, but condemn them, and pronounce them very wicked men, and deserving of punishment here and hereafter:
and with the bag of deceitful weights? or "stones" (o); which were used in weighing goods, and which were deceitful, when a heavier was used in buying, and a lighter in selling. So the Targum,
"and with the bag, in which are weights greater and lesser;''
condemned in Deuteronomy 25:13.
(o) "lapidum doli", Piscator; "lapidum fraudis", Montanus.
Shall I count them pure--literally, "Shall I be pure with?" &c. With the pure God shows Himself pure; but with the froward God shows Himself froward (Psalm 18:26). Men often are changeable in their judgments. But God, in the case of the impure who use "wicked balances," cannot be pure, that is, cannot deal with them as He would with the pure. VATABLUS and HENDERSON make the "I" to be "any one"; "Can I (that is, one) be innocent with wicked balances?" But as "I," in Micah 6:13, refers to Jehovah, it must refer to Him also here.
the bag--in which weights used to be carried, as well as money (Deuteronomy 25:13; Proverbs 16:11).
Count them pure - Approve, or acquit then as if they were righteous.
*More commentary available at chapter level.