Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 4:1 | Behold thee beautiful, my friend, behold thee beautiful; thine eyes doves' from behind to thy veil: thy hair as a herd of goats which lay down from mount Gilead. |
| 4:2 | Thy teeth as a herd of the shorn which came up from the washing; all of them bearing twins, and none barren among them. |
| 4:3 | As a scarlet thread thy lips, and thy speech becoming: as a piece of pomegranate, thy temples from behind thy veil. |
| 4:4 | As the tower of David thy neck, built for the weapons; a thousand shields hung upon it, all shields of the powerful. |
| 4:5 | Thy two breasts as two fawns, twins of the roe deer feeding among the lilies. |
| 4:6 | Till the day shall breathe, and the shadows fled away, I will go for myself to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of Lebanon. |
| 4:7 | All of thee beautiful, my friend, and no blemish in thee. |
| 4:8 | Thou shalt come with me from Lebanon, O bride, with me from Lebanon: thou shalt go round about from the head of faith, from the head of Shenir and Hermon, from the dwellings of lions, from the mountains of panthers. |
| 4:9 | Thou didst rob me of the heart, my sister, O bride; thou didst rob me of the heart with one of thine eyes, with one necklace of thy neck. |
| 4:10 | How beautiful were thy breasts, my sister, O bride! how good were thy breasts above wine, and the odor of thine ointments above all spices. |
| 4:11 | Thy lips will drop honey droppings, O bride: honey and milk under thy tongue, and the odor of thy garments as the odor of Lebanon. |
| 4:12 | A garden shut up, my sister, O bride; a reservoir shut up, a fountain sealed. |
| 4:13 | Thy sendings forth a park of pomegranates, with most precious fruits, cypresses with spikenards, |
| 4:14 | Spikenard and saffron; the reed and cinnamon, with all the woods of Lebanon; myrrh and aloes, with all the heads of spices. |
| 4:15 | A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters and flowings from Lebanon. |
| 4:16 | Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south, blow upon my garden; its spices shall flow out. My beloved shall come to his garden, and he shall eat his most precious fruits. |
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.