Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 144:1 | . To David. Blessed be Jehovah my rock, teaching my hands for the encounter, my fingers for war; |
| 144:2 | My mercy and my fortress, my height and delivering for me; my shield, and in him I put my trust; treading down peoples under me. |
| 144:3 | O Jehovah, what is man and thou wilt know him? the son of man, and thou wilt reckon him? |
| 144:4 | Man was likened to vanity: his days as a shadow passing away. |
| 144:5 | O Jehovah, incline thy heavens, and thou wilt come down: touch upon the mountains and they shall smoke. |
| 144:6 | Send forth the lightning, and thou wilt scatter them: send thine arrows, and thou wilt destroy them. |
| 144:7 | Send thy hands from height; snatch me away, and deliver me from many waters, from the hand of the sons of the stranger; |
| 144:8 | Whom their mouth spake vanity, and their right hand a right hand of falsehood. |
| 144:9 | O God, a new song will I sing to thee; with an instrument of ten strings, I will play on the harp to thee. |
| 144:10 | Giving salvation to kings: snatch in away David his servant from the evil sword. |
| 144:11 | Snatch me away and deliver me from the hand of the sons of the stranger, whom their mouth spake vanity, and their right hand a right hand of falsehood: |
| 144:12 | That our sons as plants growing great in their youth, our daughters as corners variegated, the likeness of a temple: |
| 144:13 | Our garners being filled, bringing forth from sort to sort; our sheep bringing forth thousands, ten thousands in our streets: |
| 144:14 | Our oxen bearing no breaking, and no coming forth, and no complaining in our broad places. |
| 144:15 | Happy the people thus and thus to him: happy the people Jehovah his 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.