Psalms 46:4 in 8 translations
7 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.
a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy of the tabernacles of the most High.
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.
There is a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God, The holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
There is a river the streams whereof make glad the city of God, the sanctuary of the habitations of the Most High.
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 river--its rivulets rejoice the city of God, Thy holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High.
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.
There is a river, the streams of which make the city of God glad, the holy place of the tents of the Most High.
2000s · Public domain · A modern-English update of the ASV. Reads close to contemporary speech while staying in the literal tradition. Includes the Apocrypha.
These 2 editions word this verse identically.
A river there is, whose streams make glad God’s city, the home the Most High has hallowed.
in progress · Public domain (CC0) · A modern open-licensed translation, still being completed. Some Old Testament books are not yet available.
Simplified English
Built from a deliberately small vocabulary so the sense stays reachable for new readers and non-native speakers. Trades nuance for clarity.
There is a river whose streams make glad the resting-place of God, the holy place of the tents of the Most High.
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.
There is a river, the streams of which make the city of God, glad, the holy place of the tents of the most High.
Word-for-word swaps
- shall→of
- tabernacles→tents
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.