[63] This edition has hence been described by Bible collectors as the “Wicked Bible.” The error was of course speedily discovered and the edition suppressed. Archbishop Laud fined the printer in the sum of £300, and with this he is said to have bought a fount of Greek type for the University of Oxford.
[64] In the reign of Charles II. a silly report was set afloat that Field, the printer of what is known as the Pearl Bible of 1653, had received a present of £1,500 from the Independents to introduce this corruption into the text. See D’Israeli’s Curiosities of Literature, Art. Pearl Bible. Mr. D’Israeli must have been ignorant of the fact that this error occurs in Bibles printed fifteen years earlier than the Pearl Bible, and by the University Press, Cambridge.
[65] This may possibly have been a change deliberately made by the editor, who either had a different Greek text or followed the Vulgate; but even in that case it would be a very awkward way of rendering the text before him.
[66] This he has done, professedly, in the attempt to represent the version of 1611, “so far as may be, in the precise shape that it would have assumed if its venerable translators had shown themselves more exempt than they were from the failings incident to human infirmity; or if the same severe accuracy which is now demanded in carrying so important a volume through the press had been deemed requisite, or was at all usual in their age.”—Introduction to Cambridge Paragraph Bible, p. i.
[67] The LXX. and Vulgate are here right; so also Wycliffe, who, translating from the Latin, renders, “Seven trompes, whos vse is in the iubile.”
[68] Wycliffe, “Stronge men seseden in Yrael.”
[69] Here again the LXX., Vulgate, and Wycliffe are right. Wycliffe renders, “of whom shulen be alle the best thingis of Yrael.”
[70] The LXX., Vulgate, Wycliffe, the Great Bible, the Genevan, and the Bishops’, all give the true sense.
[71] In their rendering of verse 3 the Revisers of 1611 have followed the Genevan. Of the older versions, the Great Bible best renders this verse, “All my delyte is upon the saynctes that are in the earth, and upon suche as excell in vertue.”
[72] The Vulgate leads the way in this error.