1 Samuel 19:10 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 sought to smite David even to the wall with the javelin; but he slipped away out of Saul’s presence, and he smote the javelin into the wall: and David fled, and escaped that night.
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 sought to smite David even to the wall with the spear; but he slipped away out of Saul`s presence, and he smote the spear into the wall: and David fled, and escaped that night.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
And Saul sought to smite David and the wall with the spear; but he slipped away out of Saul's presence, and he smote the spear into the wall. And David fled, and escaped that night.
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 Saul seeketh to smite with the javelin through David, and through the wall, and he freeth himself from the presence of Saul, and he smiteth the javelin through the wall; and David hath fled and escapeth during that night.
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 sought to pin David to the wall with the spear; but he slipped away out of Saul’s presence, and he stuck the spear into the wall. David fled, and escaped that night.
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 would have sent his spear through him, pinning him to the wall, but he got away and the spear went into the wall: and that night David went in flight and got away.
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 sought to pin David to the wall with the spear; but he slipped away out of Saul’s presence, and he stuck the spear into the wall: David fled, and escaped that night.
Word-for-word swaps
- smite→pin
- javelin→spear
- smote→stuck
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.