The charge: literally “the sharpening” or “the file.” The price for doing this work was determined by which implement was being sharpened. This may be expressed in a variety of ways: “the Philistines … charged” (New Century Version) or “the Israelites had to pay….” Or simply “the price was….”
Pim is a transliteration of a Hebrew word that occurs nowhere else in the Old Testament. Archaeologists, however, have discovered ancient weights with the word pim written on them, so the meaning of this Hebrew term is now clear. Bible en français courant says “two-thirds of a silver coin,” and New Living Translation says “a quarter of an ounce of silver.” New Revised Standard Version, Revised English Bible, New American Bible, and New Jerusalem Bible all translate pim according to its value as “two thirds of a shekel” (New International Version). Good News Translation does not use the term shekel, since this term is unknown to most readers today, and where it is known the value is quite different today. Good News Translation does, however, maintain the distinction that the cost for sharpening plowshares and mattocks was twice the cost (“two coins”) of sharpening the other tools (“one small coin”). Virtually all versions leave uncertainty in the minds of the reader as to whether the charges of the Philistines were reasonable or exorbitant. This would not have been a question to the original readers and hearers. They would have known that the prices were unreasonably high. For this reason Contemporary English Version translates the meaning of the text by saying “the Philistines charged high prices,” providing a footnote that gives a more literal rendering of the Hebrew.
Goads were sharp instruments used to control oxen. The Hebrew noun “sharpening,” rendered charge in Revised Standard Version, takes the nouns plowshares, mattocks, and axes as objects. The noun goads, however, is the object of a verb meaning “to erect” or “to set up.” New International Version renders this “for repointing goads,” and New Jerusalem Bible and Stuttgarter Erklärungsbibel say “straightening goads.”Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente uses a general verb “to repair the goads.”
As the footnotes in Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation state, the Hebrew of this verse is difficult to understand. A literal translation of the Hebrew reads “and was the sharpening a pim for the plows and for the mattocks and a third of a fork [a three pronged fork?] and for the axes and for setting the goads.” Some interpreters consider the words “and a third of a fork” too difficult to make any sense. Traduction œcuménique de la Bible simply places three dots in the text rather than attempt to make sense of these words.
Other interpreters, looking to the Septuagint for help, suggest that the Hebrew text originally read “a third of a shekel.” This is the basis for the translation “a third of a shekel” found in Revised Standard Version, New Revised Standard Version, Revised English Bible, and La Bible Pléiade in place of “a third of a fork.”
Critique Textuelle de l’Ancien Testament, however, gives a {B} rating to the Masoretic Text and proposes a translation such as “The charge for sharpening was two-thirds of a shekel for the plows, for the mattocks, and for the three-pronged instrument and the axes and for straightening [or repointing] the goads.” Nouvelle version Segond révisée, Bible en français courant, Stuttgarter Erklärungsbibel, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, and Fox follow the Hebrew text. Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente provides a good model: “[to the Philistines] who made them pay dearly: two-thirds of a piece of silver to sharpen the blade of a plow or a hoe or a three-pronged fork or a goad.”
Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on the First and Second Books of Samuel, Volume 1. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2001. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .