Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 31:1 | Wo to those going down to Egypt for help; and they will look upon horses, and trust upon chariots, because they are many; and upon horsemen because they were strong greatly; and they looked not upon the Holy One of Israel, and sought not Jehovah. |
| 31:2 | And he also being wise and he will bring evil, and he removed not his words: and he rose up against the house of those doing evil, and against the help of those working vanity. |
| 31:3 | And the Egyptians, men and not God; and their horses, flesh and not spirit And Jehovah will stretch forth his hand, and he helping became weak, and he being helped, fell, and together shall they all be finished. |
| 31:4 | For thus spake Jehovah to me, As the lion shall growl, and the young lion over his prey, when a fulness of shepherds shall be called against him, from their voice shall he not be terrified, and shall not he be humbled from their noise: thus shalt Jehovah of armies come down to war from mount Zion and for its hill. |
| 31:5 | Its birds flying, so will Jehovah of armies cover over Jerusalem, covering and he delivered; and passing over he saved. |
| 31:6 | Turn ye back to him against whom the sons of Israel made a deep turning away. |
| 31:7 | For in that day they shall reject a man the vanities of his silver, and the vanities of his gold which your hands made for you to sin. |
| 31:8 | And Assur fell by the sword, not of a man, and the sword not of a man, shall consume him, and he fled for himself from the face of the sword, and his young men shall be for tribute. |
| 31:9 | And his rock shall pass through from fear, and his chiefs were terrified from the signal, says Jehovah whose light to him in Zion, and furnace to him in Jerusalem. |
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.