Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 4:1 | And Saul's son will hear that Abner died in Hebron, and his hands will be relaxed, and all Israel trembled. |
| 4:2 | And two men, chiefs of troops, were to the son of Saul: the name of the one, Baanah, and the name of the second, Rechab, sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, of the sons of Benjamin, for also Beeroth was reckoned to Benjamin. |
| 4:3 | And the Beerothites will flee to Gittaim, and they will be sojourners there till this day. |
| 4:4 | And to Jonathan, Saul's son, a son smitten in the feet: he was the son of five years in the news coming of Saul and Jonathan from Jezreel, and his nurse will lift him up and flee: and it will be in her springing up to flee, and he will fall, and he will be lame: and his name Mephibosheth. |
| 4:5 | And the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, Rechab and Baanah, will go, and they will come about the heat of the day to the house of the man of shame; and he lay down upon the bed at noon. |
| 4:6 | And behold, they came even to the midst of the house, taking wheat; and they will strike him in the belly; and Rechab and Baanah his brother escaped. |
| 4:7 | And they will come to the house, and he will lie upon his couch in his bed-chamber, and they will strike him and kill him, and take away his head, and they will take his head and go the way of the sterile region all night |
| 4:8 | And they will bring the head of the man of shame to David to Hebron, and they will say to the king, Behold the head of the man of shame, son of Saul thine enemy, who sought thy soul; and Jehovah will give to my lord the king vengeance this day of Saul and of his seed. |
| 4:9 | And David will answer Rechab and Baanah his brother, sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, and he will say to them, Jehovah lives who redeemed my soul from all straits, |
| 4:10 | When he announcing to me, saying, Behold, Saul died; and he was in his eyes as announcing good news; and I shall seize upon him and kill him in Ziklag, which I gave to him for the good news: |
| 4:11 | Much more when wicked men killed a just man in his house upon his bed; and now shall I not seek out his blood from your hand and take you away from the earth? |
| 4:12 | And David will command the boys and they will kill them and cut off their hands and their feet, and hang them over the pain Hebron. And the head of Ishbosheth they took and they will bury it in the grave of Abner in Hebron. |
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.