Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 31:1 | And the rovers warred against Israel: and the men of Israel will flee from the face of the rovers, and they will fall wounded in mount Gilboa. |
| 31:2 | And the rovers will stick fast to Saul and his sons; and the rovers will strike Jonathan and Abinadab and Melchisua, Saul's sons. |
| 31:3 | And the war will be heavy to Saul, and the archers, men with the bow, will find him; and he will be greatly wounded from the archers. |
| 31:4 | And Saul will say to him lifting up his arms, Draw thy sword, and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised shall come and thrust me through and mock upon me. And he lifting up his arms would not, for he will fear greatly; and Saul will take the sword and will fall upon it |
| 31:5 | And he lifting up his arms will fear, for he saw Saul died; and he will fall, also he, upon his sword, and he will die with him. |
| 31:6 | And Saul will die, and his three sons, and he lifting up his arms, also all his men in that day together. |
| 31:7 | And the men of Israel will see, who are on the the other side of the valley, and who are on the other side of Jordan, that the men of Israel fled, and that Saul died and his sons, and they will leave their cities, and flee; and the rovers will come and dwell in them. |
| 31:8 | And it will be on the morrow, and the rovers will come to strip the wounded, and they will find Saul and his three sons fallen in mount Gilboa. |
| 31:9 | And they will cut off his head, and they will strip off his arms, and send into the land of the rovers round about, to announce good news to the house of their images and to the people. |
| 31:10 | And they will put up his arms in the house of Ashtaroth: and his body they will hang up upon the wall of the House of Quiet |
| 31:11 | And the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead will hear concerning him what the rovers did to Saul, |
| 31:12 | And they will rise, every man of strength, and go all night and take the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the walls of the House of Quiet, and come to Jabesh, and burn them there. |
| 31:13 | And they will take their bones and bury under the tamarisk tree at Jabesh, and they will fast seven days. |
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.