Addresses on the Revised Version of Holy Scripture

by C. J. Ellicott

from the decision of the English Company, and has adopted the proper name wherever it occurs in the Hebrew text for “the Lord” and “God.” Most English readers will agree with our Revisers. It may indeed be said, now that we can read the American text continuously, that there certainly are many passages in which the proper name seems to come upon eye or ear with a serious and appropriate force; still the reverence with which we are accustomed to treat what the Revisers speak of as “the ineffable Name” will lead most of us to sacrifice the passages, where the blessed name may have an impressive force, to the reverential uniformity of our Authorised Version, and to the latent fear that frequent iteration might derogate from the solemnity with which we instinctively clothe the ever-blessed name of Almighty God.

The next particular relates to terms of natural history. Here changes have only been made where it was certain that the Authorised Version was incorrect, and highly probable that the word substituted was right. Where doubt existed, the text was left unchanged, but the alternative word was placed in the margin. In regard of other terms, of which the old rendering was certainly wrong,

as in the case of the Hebrew term Ashêrah (probably the wooden symbol of a goddess), the Revisers have used the word, whether in the singular or plural, as a proper name. In the case of the Hebrew term “Sheôl” (corresponding to the Greek term “Hades”), variously rendered in the Authorised Version by the words “grave,” “pit,” and “hell,” the Revisers have adopted in the historical books the first or second words with a marginal note, “Heb. Sheol,” but in the poetical books they have reversed this arrangement. The American Revisers, on the contrary, specify that in all cases where the word occurs in the Hebrew text they place it unchanged in the English text, and without any margin. The case is a difficult one, but the English arrangement is to be preferred, as the reader would not so plainly need a preliminary explanation.

The last case that it here seems necessary to allude to is the change everywhere of the words “the tabernacle of the congregation” into “the tent of meeting,” as the former words convey an entirely wrong sense. These and the use of several other terms are carefully noted and explained by the Revisers, and will, I hope, induce every careful reader of their revision to make it his duty to study their

prefatory words. The almost unavoidable differences between them and the American Revisers, as to our own language, are alluded to by them in terms both friendly and wise, and may be considered fully to express the sentiments of the New Testament Company, by whom the subject is less precisely alluded to.

In passing from the Preface to the great work which it introduces, I feel the greatest difficulty, as a member of a different Company, in making more than a few very general comments. In fact, I should scarcely have ventured to do even this, had I not met with a small but very instructive volume on the revision of the Authorised Version of the Old Testament written by one of the American Revisers, and published at New York some fifteen or sixteen years ago. The volume is entitled—perhaps with excusable brevity—A Companion to the Revised Old Testament. The writer was Rev. Dr. Talbot W. Chambers, of the Collegiate Reformed Dutch Church of New York, from whose preface I learn that he was the only pastor in the Company, the others being professors in theological seminaries, and representing seven different denominations and nine different institutions. The book is written with great modesty, and as far as

I can judge, with a good working knowledge of Hebrew. The writer disclaims in it the position of speaking in any degree for the Company of which he was a member, but mentions that his undertaking was approved of by his colleagues, and received the assistance, more or less, of all of them. He was a member of the Company during the last ten years of its labours.

I can recommend this useful volume to any student of the Old Testament who is desirous to see a selected list of the changes made by the Revisers in the Pentateuch, Historical Books, Poetical Books, and Prophetical Books. These changes are given in four chapters, and in most cases are accompanied by explanatory comments, which from their tenor often seem to be reminiscences of corporate discussion. I mention these particulars as I am not aware of any similar book on the Old Testament written by any one of the English Company. If there is such a book, I do sincerely hope the writer will forgive me for not having been so fortunate as to meet with it.

The remaining comments I shall venture to make on the rendering of the Old Testament will rest on the general knowledge I have acquired of this carefully-executed and conservative

revision, and on some consideration of the many illustrations which Dr. Chambers has selected in his interesting manual. The impression that has long been left on my mind by the serious reading of the Old Testament in the Revised Version is that not nearly enough has been said of the value of the changes that have been made, and of the strong argument they furnish for the reading of the Revision in the public services of the Church. Let any serious person read the Book of Job with the two English versions in parallel columns, and form a sober opinion on the comparison—his judgement I am confident will be, that if the Revision of this Book be a fair sample of the Revision generally, our congregations have a just right to claim that the Revised Version of the Old Testament should be publicly read in their churches. Ours is a Bible-loving country, and the English Bible in its most correct form can never be rightly withheld from our public ministrations.