Exodus 37:17 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 he made the candlestick pure gold: beaten work made he the candlestick; his shaft, and his branch, his bowls, his knops, and his flowers, were of the same:
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 he made the candlestick of pure gold: of beaten work made he the candlestick, even its base, and its shaft; its cups, it knops, and its flowers, were of one piece with it:
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
And he made the candlestick of pure gold; [of] beaten work he made the candlestick: its base, and its shaft, its cups, its knobs, and its flowers were of itself.
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 he maketh the candlestick of pure gold; of beaten work he hath made the candlestick, its base, and its branch, its calyxes, its knops, and its flowers, have been of the same;
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.
He made the lamp stand of pure gold. He made the lamp stand of beaten work. Its base, its shaft, its cups, its buds, and its flowers were of one piece with it.
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.
Then he made the support for the lights, all of the best gold; its base and its pillar were of hammered gold; its cups and buds and flowers were all made out of the same metal:
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.
he made the lamp stand of pure gold: he made the lamp stand of beaten work. Its base, its shaft, its cups, its buds, and its flowers, were of one piece with it.
Word-for-word swaps
- candlestick→lamp
- his→lamp
- knops→its
- his→its
- same→one
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.