075 Pim Weight

Museum Description: Weights from Lachish

Room: 57/Case: 10/Number: WA 1980-12-14

Scripture: 1 Samuel 13:21

Something so small can still drastically change our understanding of a Bible verse.  Some critics believe the Hebrew Scriptures were not written at the time claimed, but are a later forgery from the Roman period.  They are therefore 'unhistorical' and are simply modern literary inventions.  This verse in 1 Samuel 13:21, however, uses a Hebrew word 'pim' whose meaning had become lost, even during Roman times.  As the verse is talking about sharpening implements, it has been translated as 'file' in some Bible translations, such as the King James Version.  Later, sets of these stone weights were discovered by archaeologists, and one had the Hebrew letters for 'pim' on the top.  So a pim was not a file used for sharpening, but a weight of silver used to pay those doing the sharpening.  This proves 1 Samuel could not possibly have been written during the Roman period, when knowledge of the word 'pim' had already been lost for several centuries.