Pim weight

Pim weights (Hebrew פִּים‎ pîm) were polished weight-stones about 15 mm (5/8 inch) diameter, equal to about two-thirds of a Hebrew shekel. Many specimens have been found since their initial discovery early in the 20th century, weighing about 7.6 grams, compared to 11.5 grams of a shekel. That these weights were equivalent to the weight of a pîm was confirmed by the inscription across the top of their dome: the Paleo-Hebrew letters 𐤐𐤉‬‬𐤌‬ (pym).

Drawing of the first Pim weight ever published; found at Gezer

Impact

Prior to the discovery of the weights by archaeologists, scholars did not know how to translate the word פִּים (pîm) in 1 Samuel 13:21.^[1] The 1611 translation of the King James Version of the Bible rendered the verse thusly:

Yet they had a file for the mattocks, and for the coulters, and for the forks, and for the axes, and to sharpen the goads.

Robert Alexander Stewart Macalister's excavations at Gezer (1902-1905 and 1907-1909) were published in 1912 with an illustration showing one such weight, which Macalister compared to another published in 1907 by Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau.^[2][3]

Based on this discovery, subsequent biblical translations were improved. The 1982 New King James Version rendered 1 Samuel 13:21:

And the charge for a sharpening was a pim for the plowshares, the mattocks, the forks, and the axes, and to set the points of the goads. ^[4]

Photos

Top-view of an unprovenanced pim weight

Side-view of an unprovenanced pim weight

See also

• Ancient Hebrew units of measurement
• Biblical archaeology
• List of artifacts significant to the Bible

References

1. William G. Dever, Will Dever. Recent Archaeological Discoveries and Biblical Research. Samuel and Althea Stroum lectures in Jewish studies. Publisher: University of Washington Press, 1989. p 33. ISBN 0295972610, 9780295972619
2. R. A. Stewart Macalister (1912) The Excavation of Gezer: 1902-1905 and 1907-1909, Volume II, p. 285, 292.
3. Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau (1885), Recueil d'archéologie orientale, Volume VIII, section 14. An incomplete version is available online, which does not include the section in which Macalister says the work on the pim weights is found.
4. Its appearance in an English translation occurs as early as the Jewish Publication Society's 1917 version, The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text; 'And the price for the filing was a pim[*] for the mattocks, and for the coulters, and for the forks with three teeth, and for the axes, and to set the goads." With the footnote to pim* "That is, two-thirds of a shekel."

Sources

• Macalister, R. A. Stewart (1912). The Excavation of Gezer 1902-1905 and 1907-1909 Vol. II. London: John Murray. p. 285.
• Avraham Negev; Shimon Gibson, eds. (2003). Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land. New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc. pp. 537–9.