Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 2:1 | I am the flower of the plain, the lily of the valleys |
| 2:2 | As the lily between thorns, so is my friend between the daughters. |
| 2:3 | As the apple among the trees of the forest, so my beloved between the sons. In his shadow I delighted, and I sat down, and his fruit was sweet to my palate. |
| 2:4 | He brought me to the house of wine, and his banner over me was love. |
| 2:5 | Sustain me with cakes, and refresh me with apples, for I am pierced of love. |
| 2:6 | His left hand is under my head, and his right shall embrace me. |
| 2:7 | I adjured you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, or by the hinds of the field, if ye shall awake and if ye shall arouse love till he shall desire. |
| 2:8 | The voice of my beloved I behold him coming leaping upon the mountains, springing upon the hills |
| 2:9 | My beloved is like to the roe or to the fawn of the hinds: behold him standing behind our wall looking forth from the windows, glancing from the lattices. |
| 2:10 | My beloved answered and said to me, Rise up for thyself, my friend, my beautiful one, and go for thyself. |
| 2:11 | For behold, the winter passed. away, the rain glided away; it went for itself. |
| 2:12 | The flowers were seen in the earth; the time of pruning came, and the voice of the turtle-dove was heard in our land. |
| 2:13 | The fig tree ripened its unripe figs, and the vines are in blossom; they gave an odor. Rise up, my friend, my beautiful one, and go for thyself. |
| 2:14 | My dove in the refuges of the rock, in the biding of the steep mountain: cause me to see thy form, cause me to hear thy voice; for thy voice is sweet and thy form becoming. |
| 2:15 | Seize for us the foxes, the little foxes destroying the vineyards: and our vineyards are in blossom. |
| 2:16 | My beloved to me, and I to him: he feeding among the lilies. |
| 2:17 | Until the day shall breathe and the shadows fled away, turn, thou, it being likened to thee, my beloved, to the roe, or to the fawn of the hind upon the mountains of section. |
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.