exact modern equivalent for it. The principle adopted by the Company will be best illustrated by two typical examples. The verb 'to ear' in the sense of 'to plough' and the substantive 'earing' for 'ploughing' were very reluctantly abandoned, and only because it was ascertained that their meaning was unknown to many persons of good intelligence and education. But it was easy to put in their place equivalents which had a pedigree of almost equal antiquity, and it would have been an excess of conservatism to refuse to substitute for an unintelligible archaism an expression to which no ambiguity could be attached. On the other hand the word 'bolled' (Ex. ix. 31), which signifies 'podded for seed' and is known in provincial dialects, has no synonym in literary English. To have discarded it in favour of a less accurate or more paraphrastic expression would have been to impoverish the language; and it was therefore left, because it exactly expresses one wiew which is taken of the meaning of the original.
One of the few instances in which the language of the Authorised Version has been modified in accordance with later usage is the change of the neuter possessive pronoun from 'his' to 'its'. It is well known that 'its' does not occur in the Bible of 1611, and it does not appear to have been introduced into any edition before 1660. But it is found ten times in Shakespeare, and there is other evidence to shew that at the time of the Authorised Version it was coming into use. It was found necessary in some cases to substitute 'its' for 'his' in order to avoid obscurity, and there seemed no good reason, when it was once introduced, for refusing to admit it generally when it referred to purely inanimate objects.
In making minor changes, whether in translation or language, the Revisers have followed the example of the translators of the Authorised Version, who allowed themselves in this respect a reasonable freedom, without permitting their liberty to degenerate into license.
It will be at once seen that the old division of the books into chapters and verses has been abandoned in favour of the arrangement in paragraphs, the numbering of the chapters and verses being however retained for convenience of reference. Where the change of subject seemed to require a greater break than was marked by the beginning of a new paragraph, it has been indicated by a space before the paragraph. Occasionally the divisions of the chapters in the Authorised Version differ from those in the common Hebrew Bibles. In such cases the variations are given in the margin. In the Psalms, the titles are printed in smaller type, as in some modern English Bibles, which differ in this respect from the edition of 1611. One consequence of the arrangement in paragraphs has been the omission of the headings of chapters, which for other and more important reasons it was thought advisable to abandon, as involving questions which belong rather to the province of the commentator than to that of the translator. With the headings of chapters the head-lines of pages naturally disappeared also, and for the same reason.
In the poetical portions, besides the division into paragraphs, the Revisers have adopted an arrangement in lines, so as to exhibit the parallelism which is characteristic of Hebrew Poetry. But they have not extended this arrangement to the prophetical books, the language of which although frequently marked by parallelism is, except in purely lyrical passages, rather of the nature of lofty and impassioned prose.
In the use of italics the Revisers departed from the custom of the Authorised Version and adopted as their rule the following resolution of their Company:
'That all such words now printed in italics, as are plainly implied in the Hebrew and necessary in English, be printed in common type.'
But where any doubt existed as to the exact rendering of the Hebrew,
