Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 64:1 | Would that thou didst rend the heavens; thou camest down; the mountains flowed from before thee. |
| 64:2 | As the fire of meltings was kindled the fire will cause the water to boil, to cause thy name to be known to thine adversaries; from thy face shall the nations be moved. |
| 64:3 | In thy doing wonderful things we shall not expect, thou camest down, the mountains flowed from before thee. |
| 64:4 | From forever they heard not, they gave not ear, the eye saw not, O God, besides thee, he will do to him waiting for him. |
| 64:5 | Thou mettest him rejoicing and doing justice, they shall remember thee in thy ways: behold, thou wert angry; and we shall sin in them of old, and we shall be saved. |
| 64:6 | And we were all as the unclean, and all our justice as the garment of monthly courses; and we shall all fail away as the leaf; and our iniquities as the wind will take us away. |
| 64:7 | And none calling upon thy name, none rousing himself to take hold upon thee: for thou hiddest thy face from us, and thou wilt melt us by the hand of our iniquities. |
| 64:8 | And now, O Jehovah, thou our Father; we the clay and thou forming us; and we all the work of thy hand. |
| 64:9 | Thou wilt not be angry, O Jehovah, even greatly, and not forever wilt thou remember iniquity: behold, look now, Ye are all thy people. |
| 64:10 | The cities of thy holy place were desert; Zion was a desert., Jerusalem a desolation. |
| 64:11 | The house of our holy place and our glory where our fathers praised thee, was for a burning of fire, and all our precious things were for desolation. |
| 64:12 | For these wilt thou refrain thyself, O Jehovah? wilt thou be silent, and wilt thou humble us even greatly? |
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.