The Hebrew reads, “for the plowshares and for the mattocks.”

Recent discoveries make it clear that the statement thus translated should read, “the charge was a pim” (RSV; see Vol. I, p. 164). A “pim” was a monetary unit equivalent to 2/3 shekel, that is, 7.6 g. or .27 oz. avoir.

Heb. lishelosh qilleshon. The meaning is not certain. Lishelosh is from shalosh, which means “to divide into three parts;” it is composed of two words, le, “for,” and shelosh, a “third part.” The word qilleshon is not used elsewhere in the OT, and is of doubtful meaning. The translation “fork” is only a conjecture, based partly on a similar Aramaic word meaning “to be thin,” and the preceding word, lishelosh, which seems to have suggested that the “thin” object, whatever it may have been, was “divided into three parts.” The modern Hebrew translation by Harkavy renders the expression as “three-pronged forks,” which is closer to the meaning of the Hebrew than the word “fork” alone.

The RSV translates lishelosh qilleshon, “a third of a shekel.” Like that of the KJV and others, this translation also is a conjecture, and is probably based on a transposition of letters in the word qilleshon, reading sheqel, “shekel,” instead of qilleshon, with the on being considered a diminutive.

The translation “fork” is questionable because the “forks” of that time, as in many places throughout the Orient where primitive tools are still in use today, were wooden and not metallic. The Israelites would not be taking wooden forks to the Philistines to be sharpened (see vs. 19-21). Obviously, if lishelosh qilleshon is to be considered a tool, it must have been made by a “smith” (v. 19). In view of the fact that the “pim” of v. 21 is now known to be a monetary unit and not a “file,” the RSV translation, “a third of a shekel,” becomes plausible though by no means conclusive (see Vol. I, p. 164). The translation, “the charge was a pim for the plowshares” (RSV) therefore seems preferable.