Translation Notes
Where modern Bibles have the same Greek or Hebrew as the King James Bible but translate it differently, these notes show why the King James renders the word as it does: the word's form and use, and how the early translations and writers took it.
Old Testament
Lucifer
The KJV keeps the name the Latin and English Bibles had always given the shining one who fell from heaven.
Virgin
The sign Isaiah gave was a virgin conceiving, as the Septuagint and Matthew read it.
The Desire of All Nations
Haggai foretells a Person, the Christ, who would come to the second temple and make its glory greater than Solomon’s.
Unicorn
In the KJV’s English a unicorn was a real beast of great strength, the one-horned monoceros or rhinoceros, not a creature of fable.
New Testament
Only Begotten
The Greek joins “only” to “born”: the Son is not merely unique, but the one begotten of the Father.
Easter
In the English the KJV inherited, “Easter” was a name for the Passover feast itself.
Charity
The church’s old word for the love that comes from God and goes out to God and to men.
Study
In the KJV’s English, to study was to apply oneself with diligent effort, and here the work is the word of truth.
Corrupt
A kapēlos was a retail dealer, known for watering his wine; the many did the same with the word of God.
Robbery
Christ thought it no robbery, no usurpation, to be equal with God, because He was equal with God.
Since Ye Believed
Paul asks what the disciples at Ephesus had received from the time they believed; “since” is the English of the Greek and of every English Bible before the KJV.
