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  • From: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] 1 Samuel 13:21 - file or price ?
  • Date: Sat, 18 Feb 2006 07:24:15 -0600

Dear Steven,

1 Samuel 13:21 (KJB)
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.
(Hebr: a file with mouthes)

1 Samuel 13:21 (Holman)
The price was two-thirds of a shekel for plowshares and mattocks,
and one-third [of a shekel] for pitchforks and axes,
and for putting a point on an oxgoad.

The late Michael Weitzman has a reference
http://www.tyndale.org/Reformation/1/weitzman.html
The solution came through the discovery in the Holy Land, starting at the beginning of this century, of ancient weight inscribed with the Hebrew letters pym ... (This suggestion was published by E.1. Pilcher, 'A New Hebrew Weight', Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund (1914), p. 99. Pilcher makes it clear, however, that the suggestion was due to Mr Samuel Raffaeli, who had acquired the third example known of the pim weight. )

Yet in other places it appears that this is a rather conjectural akkadian cognate idea, not "Hebrew letters".

(google cache)
<http://www.biblecentre.net/ot/twot/pe/pe15.html>http://www.biblecentre.net/ot/twot/pe/pe15.html
pim ...was formerly connected with peh... Now the word has been found inscribed on several weights of two-third shekel size. Speiser (see bibliography) suggested that the word is a dual and arose from a false Hebraizing of the Akkadian shanipu (a Sumerian loan word for two-thirds of a shekel), reading it as two p<s therefore in Hebrew a dual of peh - payim . (the ordinary plural of peh “mouth” has a feminine ending).(the ordinary plural of peh “mouth” has a feminine ending).

Are these basically the same archaelogical references ?
Are we talking about Hebrew letters or a rather super-conjectural Akkadian cognate relationship ?


HH: The letters were found in Hebrew; Speiser is just giving a theory as to the original basis for them. Here is the NET Bible translation with notes:

13:21 They charged (29) two-thirds of a shekel (30) to sharpen plowshares and cutting instruments, and a third of a shekel (31) to sharpen picks and axes, and to set ox goads.

29tn Heb "the price was." The meaning of the Hebrew word (pÿtsirah) is uncertain. This is the only place it occurs in the OT. Some propose the meaning "sharpening," but "price" is a more likely meaning if the following term refers to a weight (see the following note on the word "shekel"). See P. K. McCarter, I Samuel (AB), 238.

30tn This word, which appears only here in the OT, probably refers to a stone weight. Stones marked (pim) have been found in excavations of Palestinian sites. The average weight of such stones is 0.268 ounces, which is equivalent to about two-thirds of a shekel. This probably refers to the price charged by the Philistines for the services listed. See P. K. McCarter, I Samuel (AB), 238; DNWSI 2:910; and G. I. Davies, Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions, 259.

31tc Heb "and for a third, a pick." The Hebrew text suffers from haplography at this point. The translation follows the textual reconstruction offered by P. K. McCarter, I Samuel (AB), 235.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard





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