Textus Receptus Bibles
Coverdale Bible 1535
| 23:1 | And it was tolde Dauid: Beholde, the Philistynes fight against Cegila, and spoyle the barnes. |
| 23:2 | Then Dauid axed at the LORDE, and sayde: Shal I go, & smyte these Philistynes? And the LORDE sayde vnto Dauid: Go thy waye, thou shalt smyte the Philistynes, and delyuer Cegila. |
| 23:3 | But ye men that were with Dauid, sayde vnto him: Beholde, we are here in feare in Iewry, and shall we go to Cegila vnto the hoost of the Philistynes? |
| 23:4 | The Dauid axed at the LORDE agayne. And the LORDE answered him, and sayde: Vp, get the downe to Cegila, for I wil delyuer the Philistynes in to thy hande. |
| 23:5 | So Dauid wente with his men vnto Cegila, and foughte agaynst the Philistynes, & droue awaye their catell, and smote them wt a greate slaughter. Thus Dauid delyuered them of Cegila. |
| 23:6 | For whan Abiathar the sonne of Ahimelech fled vnto Dauid at Cegila, he bare downe the ouerbody cote with him. |
| 23:7 | The was it tolde Saul, that Dauid was come to Cegila, and he sayde: God hath deliuered him in to my hade, for he is shut fast in, now that he is come in to a cite which is kepte wt gates and barres. |
| 23:8 | And Saul caused for to call all the people downe to ye battaill vnto Cegila, yt they might besege Dauid and his men. |
| 23:9 | But whan Dauid perceaued yt Saul inteded euell against him, he saide vnto Abiathar ye prest: Brynge me hither the ouerbody cote. |
| 23:10 | And Dauid sayde: O LORDE God of Israel, thy seruaunt hath herde, that Saul goeth aboute to come for to destroye the cite of Cegila for my sake. |
| 23:11 | Shal the citysens of Cegila delyuer me ouer in to his handes? And shal Saul come downe, as thy seruaunt hath herde? Tell thy seruaunt this, O LORDE God of Israel. And the LORDE saide: He shal come downe. |
| 23:12 | Dauid sayde: Shall the citysens of Cegila delyuer me and my men in to Sauls handes? The LORDE sayde: Yee. |
| 23:13 | The Dauid gat him vp with his me, of whom there were vpon a sixe hundreth, & walked whither they coulde. Now whan it was tolde Saul that Dauid was escaped from Cegila, he let his iourney stonde. |
| 23:14 | As for Dauid, he remayned in the wildernes in the castell, and abode vpon the mount in the wildernes of Siph. But Saul soughte him as longe as he lyued. Neuertheles God gaue him not in to his handes. |
| 23:15 | And Dauid sawe, that Saul was gone forth to seke after his life. But Dauid was in the wildernes of Siph, in the wodd. |
| 23:16 | Then Ionathas the sonne of Saul gat him vp, and wete vnto Dauid in to the wod, and strengthed his hande in God, |
| 23:17 | and sayde vnto him: Feare not, my father Sauls hande shal not finde ye: and thou shalt be kynge ouer Israel, so will I be the nexte vnto the. And yt my father knoweth right well. |
| 23:18 | And they made a couenaunt both together before the LORDE. And Dauid remayned in the wodd. As for Ionathas, he wente home agayne. |
| 23:19 | But the Siphites wente vp to Saul vnto Gibeath, and sayde: Is not Dauid hyd with vs in the castell in ye wodd, vpon mout Hachila, which lyeth on the righte hande of the wildernesse? |
| 23:20 | Let the kynge come downe now therfore acordinge to all the desyre of his hert, and we wyll delyuer him in to the kynges hande. |
| 23:21 | Then sayde Saul: Blessed be ye of the LORDE, that ye haue had pytie vpon me: |
| 23:22 | Go youre waye now therfore, and be sure, that ye maye knowe and se in what place his fete haue bene, and who hath sene him there: for it is tolde me, that he is full of sotiltye. |
| 23:23 | Loke well and spye out all the places, where he hydeth him, and come agayne to me, whan ye are sure, and I will go with you. Yf he be in the londe, I wyl enquere after him amonge all the thousandes in Iuda. |
| 23:24 | Then gat they them vp, and wente their waye vnto Siph before Saul. But Dauid and his men were in the wyldernes of Mao, euen in the felde on the righte hande of the wildernes. |
| 23:25 | Now whan Saul wente thither with his men to seke him, it was tolde Dauid and he gat him downe to the rocke, and abode in the wildernesse of Mahon. |
| 23:26 | Whan Saul herde that, he folowed after Dauid in the wildernesse of Mahon. And Saul with his men wente on the one syde of the hyll: Dauid wt his men on ye other syde of ye hill. But whan Dauid made haist to escape from Saul, Saul with his men compased aboute Dauid and his men, that he might take the. |
| 23:27 | Neuertheles there came a messauger vnto Saul, and sayde: Make haist and come, for the Philistynes are falle in to the londe. |
| 23:28 | The Saul turned him from chacynge of Dauid, and wente agaynst the Philstynes. Therfore is ye place called Sela Mahelkoth. |
| 23:29 | And Dauid wente vp from thence, and abode in the castell at En Gaddi. |
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.