Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 17:1 | And the word of Jehovah will be to me, saying, |
| 17:2 | Son of man, propose an enigma and use a parable to the house of Israel; |
| 17:3 | And say, Thus said the Lord Jehovah: The great eagle great of wings, long of the wing-feather, full of feathers, which to him variegation, came to Lebanon, and he will take the foliage of the cedar. |
| 17:4 | He plucked off the head of the suckers, and he will bring it to the land of Canaan, and he set it in a city of merchants. |
| 17:5 | And he will take from the seed of the land, and he will give it in a field of seed; he took it to many waters, he set it a willow. |
| 17:6 | And it will spring up, and it will be for a spreading vine low of stature, for its branches turning towards him, and its roots will be under him: and it will be for a vine, and it will make branches, and it will send forth foliage. |
| 17:7 | And there will be one great eagle, great of wings, and many feathers: and behold, this vine turned her roots to him, and sent forth her branches to him, to water it from the ascendings of its planting. |
| 17:8 | In a good field by many waters it was planted, to make branches to bear fruit, to be for a great vine. |
| 17:9 | Say, Thus said the Lord Jehovah: Shall it prosper? shall he not pluck up its roots, and cut off its fruit, and dry up all the fresh foliage of its springing up? It shall be dried up, and not in its great strength, and by much people to lift it up from its roots. |
| 17:10 | And behold, being planted, shall it prosper? as the east wind strikes upon it? drying up, shall it not be dried up? it shall be dried up upon the risings of its springing up. |
| 17:11 | And the word of Jehovah will be to me, saying, |
| 17:12 | Say now to the house of contradiction, Knew ye not what are these? Say, Behold, the king of Babel coming to Jerusalem, and he will take her king and her chiefs, and bring them to him into Babel. |
| 17:13 | And he will take from the seed of the kingdom and cut out with him a covenant, and he will bring him in with an oath, and he took the mighty of the land: |
| 17:14 | To be a low kingdom, not to be lifted up, to watch his covenant to stand to it |
| 17:15 | And he will rebel against him to send his messengers to Egypt, to give to him horses and much people. Shall he prosper? shall he doing these, escape? and breaking the covenant, and escaping? |
| 17:16 | I live, says the Lord Jehovah, if not in the place the king making him king which he despised his oath, and which he broke his covenant with him, in the midst of Babel he shall die. |
| 17:17 | And not with great strength and with a great convocation, shall Pharaoh do for him in the war by throwing up a mound and by building a watchtower to cut off many souls? |
| 17:18 | And he despised the oath to break the covenant, and behold, he gave his hand, and doing all these he shall not escape. |
| 17:19 | For this, thus said the Lord Jehovah: I live, if not mine oath which he despised, and my covenant which he brake, and I gave it upon his head. |
| 17:20 | And I spread my net upon him and he was taken in my net, and I brought him to Babel, and I contended with him there for his transgression which he transgressed against me. |
| 17:21 | And all his flight with all his hosts, they shall fall by the sword, and they being left shall be dispersed to every wind: and ye knew that I Jehovah spake. |
| 17:22 | Thus said the Lord Jehovah: And I took from the foliage of the cedar, and I gave from the head; I will pluck its suckers a tender one, and I planted upon a mountain of height and heaped up. |
| 17:23 | In the mountain of the height of Israel I will plant it: and it bare a branch, and it made fruit, and it was for a great cedar: and there dwelt under it all fowls of every wing; in the shadow of its branches shall they dwell. |
| 17:24 | And all the trees of the field knew that I Jehovah brought low the tree of height, made high the low tree, I dried up the green tree, and I caused the dry tree to flourish: I Jehovah spake and I did. |
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.