The use of a unique word “PYM” in the book of 1 Samuel has caused confusion about the meaning and interpretation of the following narrative. (Please note that PYM is sometimes transliterated as pim, piym, or payim.)
“…and the charge for a sharpening was a piym for the plowshares, the mattocks, the forks, and the axes, and to fix the hoes.” (1 Samuel 13:21 NASB 95)
For centuries, Bible translators had no idea what the word PYM meant since it appeared nowhere else in the Old Testament and no ancient lexicons had translated its meaning.
However, archaeological excavations at Gezer in the early 1900s uncovered a stone weight inscribed with the word PYM in ancient Hebrew script, and the mystery was solved. When archaeologists and lexicographers analyzed it, they finally understood that a PYM was a unit of weight, and that the PYM stone was an ancient scale-weight. The denomination PYM was equivalent to about 7.6 grams or two-thirds of a shekel.
It turns out that there were no blacksmiths in Israel at that time because the Philistines didn’t want the Israelites to have the means of making swords and spears. Consequently, the Israelites had to go to the Philistines to have their tools sharpened, and a PYM (or piym) was the price in weight of silver to sharpen the tools.
Prior to the standardization of currency in minted coins, silver or other precious metals were typically weighed out on one side of a scale, with a stone of a known weight on the other side. Numerous examples of the piym weight have now been discovered in various sites throughout ancient Israel.
Although the weight was apparently common at one time in Israelite history, it fell out of use during the Divided Kingdom period of Israel and Judah and was no longer known by the time of the Intertestamental Period.
Interesting Historical Corroboration
Since the book of Samuel used this word, and since the word was later lost to history, this conclusively demonstrates that the writing of the books of Samuel took place in the time of ancient Israel that they claim to be from.
