Isaiah 5:30 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 in that day they shall roar against them like the roaring of the sea: and if look unto the land, behold darkness sorrow, and the light is darkened in the heavens thereof.
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 they shall roar against them in that day like the roaring of the sea: and if one look unto the land, behold, darkness [and] distress; and the light is darkened in the clouds thereof.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
and they shall roar against them in that day like the roaring of the sea. And if one look upon the earth, behold darkness [and] distress, and the light is darkened in the heavens thereof.
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 it howleth against it in that day as the howling of a sea, And it hath looked attentively to the land, And lo, darkness--distress, And light hath been darkened by its abundance!
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.
They will roar against them in that day like the roaring of the sea. If one looks to the land behold, darkness and distress. The light is darkened in its clouds.
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 his voice will be loud over him in that day like the sounding of the sea: and if a man's eyes are turned to the earth, it is all dark and full of trouble; and the light is made dark by thick clouds.
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.
they will roar against them in that day like the roaring of the sea: if one looks to the land, behold darkness and distress. the light is darkened in its clouds.
Word-for-word swaps
- shall→will
- unto→one
- thereof→its
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.