Numbers 7:87 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.
All the oxen for the burnt offering twelve bullocks, the rams twelve, the lambs of the first year twelve, with their meat offering: and the kids of the goats for sin offering twelve.
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.
all the oxen for the burnt-offering twelve bullocks, the rams twelve, the he-lambs a year old twelve, and their meal-offering; and the males of the goats for a sin-offering twelve;
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
All the cattle for the burnt-offering was: twelve bullocks, twelve rams, twelve yearling lambs and their oblation; and twelve bucks of the goats for a sin-offering.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
all the oxen for burnt-offering are twelve bullocks, rams twelve, lambs, sons of a year twelve, and their present; and kids of the goats twelve, for sin-offering;
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.
all the cattle for the burnt offering twelve bulls, the rams twelve, the male lambs a year old twelve, and their meal offering; and the male goats for a sin offering twelve;
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.
All the oxen, for the burned offering were twelve, the male sheep twelve, the he-lambs of the first year twelve, with their meal offering; and the males of the goats for sin-offering twelve;
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.
All the cattle for the burnt offering twelve bulls, the rams twelve, the male lambs a year old twelve, and their meal offering: and the male goats for a sin offering twelve.
Word-for-word swaps
- oxen→cattle
- bullocks→bulls
- first→a
- with→and
- meat→meal
- the→male
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.