Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
18:1 | And Bildad the Shuhite will answer and say, |
18:2 | How long will ye set an end to words? Ye shall understand, and afterwards we will speak. |
18:3 | Wherefore were we reckoned as cattle, and were unclean in your eyes? |
18:4 | He rent his soul in his anger: shall the earth be forsaken for thee? and shall the rock be removed from its place? |
18:5 | Also the light of the unjust shall be extinguished, and the flame of his fire shall not shine; |
18:6 | The light was darkened in his tent, and his lamp shall be extinguished for him. |
18:7 | The steps of his strength shall be straightened, and his counsel shall cast him down. |
18:8 | For he was cast into a net by his feet, and he will go about upon latticework. |
18:9 | A snare shall lay hold upon the heel, the noose shall hold fast upon him. |
18:10 | His gin being hid in the earth, and his snare upon the beaten path. |
18:11 | Terrors made him afraid round about, and scattered him to his feet. |
18:12 | His strength shall be hunger, and destruction being prepared at his side. |
18:13 | It shall devour the bars of his skin: the first-born of death shall devour his bars. |
18:14 | His confidence shall be plucked out from his tent, and it shall drive him to the king of terrors. |
18:15 | It shall dwell in his tent, from not to him: brimstone shall be scattered upon his dwelling. |
18:16 | From underneath, his roots shall be dried up, and from above, his harvest shall be cut off. |
18:17 | His remembrance shall perish from the earth, and not a name to him upon a face without. |
18:18 | They shall drive him out of light into darkness, and they shall exclude him from the habitable globe. |
18:19 | No offspring to him, and no progeny among his people, and not a survivor in his dwellings. |
18:20 | Others were astonished at his day, and the ancient took hold on shuddering. |
18:21 | Also these the dwellings of evil, and this the place of him not knowing God. |
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
The Julia Evelina Smith Parker Translation is considered the first complete translation of the Bible into English by a woman. The Bible was titled The Holy Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments; Translated Literally from the Original Tongues, and was published in 1876.
Julia Smith, of Glastonbury, Connecticut had a working knowledge of Latin, Greek and Hebrew. Her father had been a Congregationalist minister before he became a lawyer. Having read the Bible in its original languages, she set about creating her own translation, which she completed in 1855, after a number of drafts. The work is a strictly literal rendering, always translating a Greek or Hebrew word with the same word wherever possible. Smith accomplished this work on her own in the span of eight years (1847 to 1855). She had sought out no help in the venture, even writing, "I do not see that anybody can know more about it than I do." Smith's insistence on complete literalness, plus an effort to translate each original word with the same English word, combined with an odd notion of Hebrew tenses (often translating the Hebrew imperfect tense with the English future) results in a translation that is mechanical and often nonsensical. However, such a translation if overly literal might be valuable to consult in checking the meaning of some individual verse. One notable feature of this translation was the prominent use of the Divine Name, Jehovah, throughout the Old Testament of this Bible version.
In 1876, at 84 years of age some 21 years after completing her work, she finally sought publication. The publication costs ($4,000) were personally funded by Julia and her sister Abby Smith. The 1,000 copies printed were offered for $2.50 each, but her household auction in 1884 sold about 50 remaining copies.
The translation fell into obscurity as it was for the most part too literal and lacked any flow. For example, Jer. 22:23 was given as follows: "Thou dwelling in Lebanon, building as nest in the cedars, how being compassionated in pangs coming to thee the pain as in her bringing forth." However, the translation was the only Contemporary English translation out of the original languages available to English readers until the publication of The British Revised Version in 1881-1894.(The New testament was published in 1881, the Old in 1884, and the Apocrypha in 1894.) This makes it an invaluable Bible for its period.