Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 44:1 | To the overseer for the sons of Korah: of instruction. O God, with our ears we heard; our fathers recounted to us the work thou didst in their days, in days of old. |
| 44:2 | Thou didst with thy hand drive out the nations and thou wilt plant them; thou wilt pluck in pieces the people, and thou wilt send them forth. |
| 44:3 | For by their sword they possessed not the land, and their arm saved them not: for thy right hand and thine arm, and the light of thy face, for thou didst delight in them. |
| 44:4 | Thou art he my King, O God: command the salvation of Jacob. |
| 44:5 | In thee we will thrust our enemies: in thy name we will tread down those rising up against us. |
| 44:6 | For I will not trust in my bow, and my sword will not serve me. |
| 44:7 | For thou savedst us from our enemies, and those hating us thou didst make ashamed. |
| 44:8 | In God we praised all the day, and thy name we will celebrate forever. Silence. |
| 44:9 | But thou didst reject, and thou wilt shame us, and not go forth with our armies. |
| 44:10 | Thou wilt turn us back from the enemy: and those hating us spoiled for themselves. |
| 44:11 | Thou wilt give us as sheep for food, and thou didst scatter us among the nations. |
| 44:12 | Thou wilt sell thy people without riches, and thou didst not increase by their price. |
| 44:13 | Thou wilt set us a reproach to our neighbors, and a derision and scorn to them round about us. |
| 44:14 | Thou wilt set us a parable among the nations, a shaking of the head among the peoples. |
| 44:15 | All the day my shame before me, and the confusion of my face covered me, |
| 44:16 | From the voice of him reproaching and reviling, from the face of the enemy and avenger. |
| 44:17 | All this came to us, and we did not forget thee, and we lied not in thy covenant |
| 44:18 | Our heart drew not back, and thou wilt not incline our going from thy path; |
| 44:19 | For thou didst crush us in the place of jackals, and thou wilt cover over us with the shadow of death. |
| 44:20 | If we forgat the name of our God, and stretched out our hands to a strange god: |
| 44:21 | Will not God search this out? for he knew the secrets of the heart |
| 44:22 | For, for thee we were killed all the day; we were reckoned as sheep of the slaughter. |
| 44:23 | Awake, why wilt thou sleep, O Jehovah? awake, thou wilt not reject forever. |
| 44:24 | Why wilt thou hide thy face? wilt thou forget our affliction and our oppression? |
| 44:25 | For our soul was bowed down to the dust: our belly was glued to the earth. |
| 44:26 | Arise a help for us, and redeem us for sake of thy mercy. |
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.