Job 28:4 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.
The flood breaketh out from the inhabitant; forgotten of the foot: they are dried up, they are gone away from men.
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.
He breaketh open a shaft away from where men sojourn; They are forgotten of the foot; They hang afar from men, they swing to and fro.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
He openeth a shaft far from the inhabitants [of the earth]: forgotten of the foot, they hang suspended; away below men they hover.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
A stream hath broken out from a sojourner, Those forgotten of the foot, They were low, from man they wandered.
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 breaks open a shaft away from where people live. They are forgotten by the foot. They hang far from men, they swing back and forth.
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.
He makes a deep mine far away from those living in the light of day; when they go about on the earth, they have no knowledge of those who are under them, who are hanging far from men, twisting from side to side on a cord.
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 breaks open a shaft away from where people live. They are forgotten by the foot: they hang far from men. they swing back and forth.
Word-for-word swaps
- out→He
- inhabitant→where
- of→by
- away→hang
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.