Textus Receptus Bibles
Coverdale Bible 1535
| 4:1 | Whan Sauls sonne herde yt Abner was deed at Hebron, his hades were feble, & all Israell was sory. |
| 4:2 | But there were two men captaynes ouer the soudyers vnder the sonne of Saul, the one was called Baena, the other Rehob, sonnes of Rimon ye Berothite, of the childre of Ben Iamin: for Beroth was couted also in Ben Iamin. |
| 4:3 | And the Berothites were fled vnto Gethaim, & were straugers there vnto this daye. |
| 4:4 | Ionathas also the sonne of Saul had a sonne which was lame on his fete, & was fyue yeare olde whan the rumoure of Saul and Ionathas came from Iesrael. And his norse toke him, and fled. And whyle she made haist and fled, he fell, and was lame: And his name was Mephiboseth. |
| 4:5 | Then wente the sonnes of Rimon ye Berothite, Rehob & Baena, & came to the house of Isboseth, in the heate of the daye, & he laye vpo his bed at the noone daie. |
| 4:6 | And they came in to the house to fetch wheate, & thrust him in the bely, & gat them awaye. |
| 4:7 | For wha they came into ye house, he laye vpo his bed in his chamber, & they stickte him to death, & smote of his heade, and toke his heade, and departed by the waye of the playne felde all that nighte, |
| 4:8 | and broughte the heade of Isboseth to Dauid vnto Hebron, and sayde vnto the kynge: Beholde, there is the heade of Isboseth the sonne of Saul thine enemye, which layed wayte for thy soule. This daye hath the LORDE auenged my lorde the kynge of Saul and his sede. |
| 4:9 | Then answered Dauid vnto Rehob and Baena his brother, ye sonnes of Rimon ye Berothite, & sayde: As truly as the LORDE lyueth, which hath deliuered my soule out of all trouble, |
| 4:10 | I toke him yt brought me worde and sayde: Saul is deed, and he thoughte he had bene a good messaunger, and at Siclag I put him to death, vnto whom I shulde haue geuen a rewarde for his message. |
| 4:11 | And these vngodly personnes haue slayne a righteous man in his owne house vpon his bed. Yee shulde not I requyre his bloude of youre handes, and take you awaye from ye earth? |
| 4:12 | And Dauid commaunded his yonge men, which slewe them, and smote of their handes and fete, and hanged them vp by ye pole at Hebron. But the heade of Isboseth toke they, and buried it in Abners graue at Hebron. |
Coverdale Bible 1535
The Coverdale Bible, compiled by Myles Coverdale and published in 1535, was the first complete English translation of the Bible to contain both the Old and New Testament and translated from the original Hebrew and Greek. The later editions (folio and quarto) published in 1539 were the first complete Bibles printed in England. The 1539 folio edition carried the royal license and was, therefore, the first officially approved Bible translation in English.
Tyndale never had the satisfaction of completing his English Bible; but during his imprisonment, he may have learned that a complete translation, based largely upon his own, had actually been produced. The credit for this achievement, the first complete printed English Bible, is due to Miles Coverdale (1488-1569), afterward bishop of Exeter (1551-1553).
The details of its production are obscure. Coverdale met Tyndale in Hamburg, Germany in 1529, and is said to have assisted him in the translation of the Pentateuch. His own work was done under the patronage of Oliver Cromwell, who was anxious for the publication of an English Bible; and it was no doubt forwarded by the action of Convocation, which, under Archbishop Cranmer's leading, had petitioned in 1534 for the undertaking of such a work.
Coverdale's Bible was probably printed by Froschover in Zurich, Switzerland and was published at the end of 1535, with a dedication to Henry VIII. By this time, the conditions were more favorable to a Protestant Bible than they had been in 1525. Henry had finally broken with the Pope and had committed himself to the principle of an English Bible. Coverdale's work was accordingly tolerated by authority, and when the second edition of it appeared in 1537 (printed by an English printer, Nycolson of Southwark), it bore on its title-page the words, "Set forth with the King's most gracious license." In licensing Coverdale's translation, King Henry probably did not know how far he was sanctioning the work of Tyndale, which he had previously condemned.
In the New Testament, in particular, Tyndale's version is the basis of Coverdale's, and to a somewhat less extent this is also the case in the Pentateuch and Jonah; but Coverdale revised the work of his predecessor with the help of the Zurich German Bible of Zwingli and others (1524-1529), a Latin version by Pagninus, the Vulgate, and Luther. In his preface, he explicitly disclaims originality as a translator, and there is no sign that he made any noticeable use of the Greek and Hebrew; but he used the available Latin, German, and English versions with judgment. In the parts of the Old Testament which Tyndale had not published he appears to have translated mainly from the Zurich Bible. [Coverdale's Bible of 1535 was reprinted by Bagster, 1838.]
In one respect Coverdale's Bible was groundbreaking, namely, in the arrangement of the books of the. It is to Tyndale's example, no doubt, that the action of Coverdale is due. His Bible is divided into six parts -- (1) Pentateuch; (2) Joshua -- Esther; (3) Job -- "Solomon's Balettes" (i.e. Canticles); (4) Prophets; (5) "Apocrypha, the books and treatises which among the fathers of old are not reckoned to be of like authority with the other books of the Bible, neither are they found in the canon of the Hebrew"; (6) the New Testament. This represents the view generally taken by the Reformers, both in Germany and in England, and so far as concerns the English Bible, Coverdale's example was decisive.