1 Samuel 18:23 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 Saul’s servants spake those words in the ears of David. And David said, Seemeth it to you light to be a king’s son in law, seeing that I a poor man, and lightly esteemed?
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 Saul`s servants spake those words in the ears of David. And David said, Seemeth it to you a light thing to be the king`s son-in-law, seeing that I am a poor man, and lightly esteemed?
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
And Saul's servants spoke those words in the ears of David. And David said, Is it a light thing in your eyes to be the king's son-in-law, seeing that I am a poor man, and lightly esteemed?
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 the servants of Saul speak in the ears of David these words, and David saith, `Is it a light thing in your eyes to be son-in-law to the king--and I a poor man, and lightly esteemed?'
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.
Saul’s servants spoke those words in the ears of David. David said, “Does it seem to you a light thing to be the king’s son-in-law, since I am a poor man, and little known?”
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.
And Saul's servants said these things to David. And David said, Does it seem to you a small thing to be the king's son-in-law, seeing that I am a poor man, of no great name?
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.
Saul’s servants spoke those words in the ears of David. David said, “Does it seem to you a light thing to be the king’s son-in-law, since I am a poor man, and little known?”
Word-for-word swaps
- spake→spoke
- Seemeth→Does
- a→the
- that→son
- esteemed→little
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.