1 Kings 7:30 in 6 translations
6 distinct wordings, grouped by what each translation is trying to do. Differences from the King James text are marked below.
Early modern English
Seventeenth-century wording and sentence shape. Familiar, rhythmic, and the version most quotations you have heard are taken from.
And every base had four brasen wheels, and plates of brass: and the four corners thereof had undersetters: under the laver were undersetters molten, at the side of every addition.
1611 / 1769 · Public domain · The Authorised Version, revised to the 1769 Blayney text. Includes the Apocrypha as printed in 1611.
Literal, word-for-word
Follows Hebrew and Greek word order and grammar closely, even where the English becomes stiff. Useful for seeing what the underlying sentence is doing.
And every base had four brazen wheels, and axles of brass; and the four feet thereof had undersetters: beneath the laver were the undersetters molten, with wreaths at the side of each.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
And every base had four wheels of brass, and axles of brass; and on its four corners were shoulder-pieces: under the laver were shoulder-pieces molten, behind every garland.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
And four wheels of brass are to the one base, and axles of brass; and its four corners have shoulders--under the laver are the molten shoulders, beside each addition.
1898 · Public domain · The most extreme word-for-word rendering here, keeping Hebrew and Greek tense and word order at the cost of natural English.
Modern English
Contemporary vocabulary and punctuation, aiming for the sentence a present-day reader would write while staying close to the source.
Every base had four bronze wheels, and axles of brass; and the four feet of it had supports. The supports were cast beneath the basin, with wreaths at the side of each.
2000s · Public domain · A modern-English update of the ASV. Reads close to contemporary speech while staying in the literal tradition. Includes the Apocrypha.
Simplified English
Built from a deliberately small vocabulary so the sense stays reachable for new readers and non-native speakers. Trades nuance for clarity.
Every base had four wheels of brass, turning on brass rods, and their four angles had angle-plates under them; the angle-plates under the base were of metal, and there were ornaments at the side of every one.
1949 · Public domain · Written with roughly a thousand basic English words plus a small Bible vocabulary. The plainest reading available here.
What changes between the King James and modern wording
The modern rendering is printed below with every word that differs from the King James text marked, so the actual divergence is visible rather than left for you to spot.
every base had four bronze wheels, and axles of brass: and the four feet of it had supports. the supports were cast beneath the basin, with wreaths at the side of each.
Word-for-word swaps
- brasen→bronze
- plates→axles
- thereof→feet
- under→supports
- laver→supports
- molten→cast
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.
Not shown for this verse: Open English Bible (US), Open English Bible (Commonwealth). Those translations are still incomplete in the corpus, and empty cards are not padded in.