pa'amon

HALOT, BDB, and DCH all gloss פַּעֲמֹן as "bell," and treat the noun as a derivative of the root פעם, associated with striking or beating, which suits an object that sounds when struck. Its distribution is entirely Priestly and entirely confined to the description of the high priest's robe: the instructions in Exodus 28:33-34 and the corresponding execution report in Exodus 39:25-26, where the bells alternate with woven pomegranates (רִמּוֹן, H7416) around the hem of the מְעִיל. Small gold and bronze bells of both the clapper and the pellet type are widely attested archaeologically in the Levant and Egypt, so the general referent is not in doubt, though the precise form of the priestly bells cannot be recovered from the text. The function of the sound is discussed at length in the commentary literature (Houtman, Exodus, HCOT; Propp, Exodus 19-40, AYB), which weighs the rationale Exodus 28:35 itself gives, that Aaron is heard as he enters and leaves the holy place and does not die, alongside proposals that the sound had a protective role on analogy with the wider ancient use of bells; the text supplies only the former. Zechariah 14:20 uses a different noun, מְצִלָּה (H4698), for the bells of horses, so Biblical Hebrew keeps the priestly bells lexically distinct.