Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 65:1 | To the overseer; chanting to David a song. Praise being silent to thee, O God in Zion: and to thee shall the vow be repaid. |
| 65:2 | Hear thou prayer: even to thee shall all flesh come. |
| 65:3 | The words of iniquities were strong above me: our transgressions thou wilt cover them. |
| 65:4 | Happy him thou wilt choose, and thou wilt draw near; he shall dwell in thy enclosures: we shall be satisfied in the good of thy house; holy is thy temple. |
| 65:5 | Wonderful things in justice thou wilt answer us, O God saving us, the trust of all the ends of the earth, and those being far off upon the sea: |
| 65:6 | Preparing the mountains in his strength; being girded with might: |
| 65:7 | Restraining the tumult of the seas, the tumult of their waves, and the multitude of the nations. |
| 65:8 | And they shall be afraid, those dwelling in the ends, from thy signs: the goings forth of the morning and evening thou wilt cause to rejoice. |
| 65:9 | Thou reviewedst the earth, and thou wilt water it: thou wilt greatly enrich it; the stream of God being full of waters: thou wilt prepare their grain, for so thou wilt prepare it. |
| 65:10 | Thou givest its furrows to drink to the full: thou wilt cause its incisions to flow down in showers: thou wilt bless its springing up. |
| 65:11 | Thou crownest the year of thy goodness, and thy tracks shall drop fatness. |
| 65:12 | The pastures of the desert shall drop, and the hills shall be girded with joy. |
| 65:13 | The lambs of the sheep were clothed, and the valleys shall be covered with corn; they shall shout for joy, they shall also sing. |
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.