Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 41:1 | Be silent to me, ye islands; and the people shall change strength: they shall draw near; then shall they speak: together we will come near for judgment |
| 41:2 | Who raised up justice from the sunrising? he shall call him to his foot; he will give the nations before him; and he will bring down kings: he will give as the dust of his sword, as driven straw, his bow. |
| 41:3 | He will pursue them, he will pass over in peace; the path he will not come in with his feet |
| 41:4 | Who made and did, calling the generations from the beginning? I Jehovah, the first, and with the last; I am he. |
| 41:5 | The isles saw, and they will be afraid; the extremities of the earth will tremble; they drew near and they will come. |
| 41:6 | They will help a man his neighbor, and he will say to his brother, Be strong. |
| 41:7 | And the artificer will strengthen the founder, he making smooth with the hammer, he beating the anvil, saying, It is good for the welding; he will strengthen it with nails; it shall not totter. |
| 41:8 | And thou, Israel, my servant Jacob whom I chose thee, the seed of Abraham my beloved: |
| 41:9 | Whom I held thee fast from the extremities of the earth, and I called thee from its sides, and saying to thee, Thou my servant; I chose thee, and I rejected thee not |
| 41:10 | Thou shalt not fear, for I am with thee: thou shalt not look around for help for I thy God will strengthen thee; also I helped thee; also I held thee up with the right hand of my justice. |
| 41:11 | Behold, all they burning with anger against thee shall be ashamed and disgraced: they shall be as nothing; and the men of thy strife shall be destroyed. |
| 41:12 | Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find them; the man of thy contention, the men of thy war, shall be as nothing and as no more. |
| 41:13 | For I Jehovah thy God holding thy right hand, saying to thee, Thou shalt not fear; I helped thee. |
| 41:14 | Thou shalt not fear, thou worm Jacob, ye men of Israel; I helped thee, says Jehovah, and thy redeemer the Holy One of Israel. |
| 41:15 | Behold, I set thee to a new cutting threshing sledge having mouths: thou thalt thresh the mountains, and beat small, and the hills thou shalt set as chaff. |
| 41:16 | Thou shalt winnow them, and the wind shall lift them up, and the storm shall scatter them: and thou shalt rejoice in Jehovah, and glory in the Holy One of Israel. |
| 41:17 | The poor and the needy seeking water, and none; their tongue failing in thirst, I Jehovah will answer them; the God of Israel, I will not forsake them. |
| 41:18 | I will open rivers upon naked hills, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will set the desert for a pool of water, and the dry land for goings forth of water. |
| 41:19 | I will give in the desert the cedar, the acacia, and the myrtle, and the tree of oil; I will set in the sterile region the the elm and the box tree together. |
| 41:20 | So that they shall see and know and attend, and consider together that the hand of Jehovah did this, and the Holy One of Israel created it |
| 41:21 | Bring near your cause, Will say Jehovah; draw near your strong defences, will the king of Jacob say: |
| 41:22 | They shall draw near and announce to us what shall happen: shewed they the former things, what they were, and we will set our heart, and we shall know their latter state; or did we hear things coming? |
| 41:23 | Announce the things coming hereafter, and we shall know that ye are God: also will ye do good or will ye do evil, and we shall look around for help and see together. |
| 41:24 | Behold, ye are from nothing, and your work no more: an abomination he will choose in you. |
| 41:25 | I roused up from the north, and he will come: from the rising of the sun he shall call upon my name: and he shall come upon prefects as clay, and as the potter will tread down the mud. |
| 41:26 | Who announced from the beginning, and we shall know? and before, and we shall say, He is just; also none announcing; also none hearing; also none heard your words. |
| 41:27 | The first to Zion, Behold, behold them: and to Jerusalem I will give him announcing good news. |
| 41:28 | And I shall see, and no man; and from these, and no counselor; and I shall ask them, and they will not turn back a word. |
| 41:29 | Behold, all of them, nothing; their works are no more: wind and emptiness are their libations. |
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.