Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 88:1 | A song of chanting to the sons of Korah to the overseer upon the lute, for affliction of instruction, for Heman the Ezrabite. O Jehovah, God of my salvation, the day have I cried in the night before thee. |
| 88:2 | My prayer shall come before thee: incline thine ear to my wailing; |
| 88:3 | For my soul was filled with evils, and my life touched upon hades. |
| 88:4 | I was reckoned with those going down to the pit: I was as a man of no strength: |
| 88:5 | Free among the dead, as they wounded lying down in the grave, whom thou no more didst remember them, and they were cut off by thy hand. |
| 88:6 | Thou didst set me in the pit beneath, in darknesses, in the shades. |
| 88:7 | Thy wrath lay upon me, and thou didst afflict with all thy breakers. Silence. |
| 88:8 | Thou didst remove far from me mine acquaintance; thou didst set me an abomination to them: I was shut up, and I shall not go forth. |
| 88:9 | Mine eye languished from affliction: I called to thee, O Jehovah, in all the day, I stretched my hands to thee. |
| 88:10 | Wilt thou do wonder to the dead? if the shades shall arise, shall they praise thee? Silence. |
| 88:11 | Shall thy mercy be recounted in the grave, thy faithfulness in destruction? |
| 88:12 | Shall thy wonder be known in darkness, and thy justice in a land of oblivion? |
| 88:13 | And to thee, O Jehovah, I cried, and in the morning shall my prayer anticipate thee. |
| 88:14 | Wherefore, O Jehovah, wilt thou cast off my soul? wilt thou hide thy face from me? |
| 88:15 | I am poor and expiring from youth: I bore thy terrors; I shall be perplexed. |
| 88:16 | Upon me thy burnings passed over; thy terrors made me silent |
| 88:17 | They surrounded me as water all the day; they folded round about me together. |
| 88:18 | Thou didst remove far from me lover and friend, mine acquaintance into darkness. |
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.