Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 77:1 | To the overseer for Jeduthun: to Asaph a chanting. My voice to God, and I will cry with my voice to God, and he gave ear to me. |
| 77:2 | In the day of my straits I sought Jehovah: my hand was stretched out at night, and it will not be slack: my soul refused to be comforted. |
| 77:3 | I will remember God and I shall be disquieted: I shall be depressed and my spirit will languish. Silence. |
| 77:4 | Thou didst hold mine eyes watching: I was moved, and I will not speak. |
| 77:5 | I reckoned the days of old, the everlasting years. |
| 77:6 | I will remember my stringed instruments in the night: I shall meditate with my heart, and my spirit will search out. |
| 77:7 | Will Jehovah reject forever? and will he no more add to be satisfied? |
| 77:8 | Did his mercy fail forever? his word come to an end to generation and generation? |
| 77:9 | Did God forget to compassionate? or in anger did he gather his compassion? Silence. |
| 77:10 | And saying, This has made me sick: the years of the right hand of the Most High. |
| 77:11 | I will remember the works of Jah: for I will remember the ancient time of thy wonder. |
| 77:12 | And I meditated in all thy work, and I will think upon all thy doings. |
| 77:13 | O God, thy way is in the holy place: what God great as God? |
| 77:14 | Thou the God doing wonder: thou didst make known thy strength among the peoples. |
| 77:15 | Thou didst redeem with the arm thy people the sons of Jacob and Joseph. Silence. |
| 77:16 | The waters saw thee, O God, the waters saw thee; they will tremble, also the depths will be moved. |
| 77:17 | The clouds poured out waters: the clouds gave a voice: also thine arrows will go about. |
| 77:18 | The voice of thy thunder in the wheel: the lightnings lightened the habitable globe: the earth moved and it will shake. |
| 77:19 | In the sea thy way, and thy paths in many waters, and thy heels were not known. |
| 77:20 | Thou didst guide thy people as sheep by the hand of Moses and Aaron. |
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.