Pim weight


Pim weights were polished stones about 15 mm diameter, equal to about two-thirds of a Hebrew shekel. Many specimens have been found since their initial discovery early in the 20th century, and each one weighs about 7.6 grams, compared to 11.5 grams of a shekel. Its name, which can also be transliterated as "payim", comes from the inscription seen across the top of its dome shape: the Phoenician letters ??‬‬?‬.

Impact

Prior to the discovery of the weights by archaeologists, scholars did not know how to translate the word pim in 1 Samuel 13:21. Robert Alexander Stewart Macalister's excavations at Gezer were published in 1912 with an illustration showing one such weight, which Macalister compared to another published in 1907 by Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau.
Here is the 1611 translation of the King James Version of the Bible:
The 1982 New King James Version rendered it:

Photos