3. ‘His’ And ‘Its’
KING JAMES BIBLE (1611)
Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you. Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
Although nearly a century separates these translations—a century in which English underwent immense changes—the use of “ye,” “thou,” and so forth remains unchanged. The King James translators simply did not believe that they had the authority to make changes reflecting developments in the English language, and so continued to reproduce the English of nearly three generations earlier.
This can also be seen in a second archaic feature, to which we now turn—the use of the old verbal endings.
2. ‘SAYETH’ OR ‘SAYS’? THE VERBAL ENDINGS
A casual reading of the writing of Geoffrey Chaucer shows that the English verb has undergone considerable development. The Middle English verbs endings remained in use during the sixteenth century even though they were beginning to be changed. The most important of these, for our purposes, are the second and third person singular forms of the present tense, of which some examples are here provided:
Thou sayest Thou givest Thou hast
He sayeth She giveth He hath
Yet during the sixteenth century, things began to change. As we have already seen, the widespread use of “you” meant that the second person singular form of the verb ceased to be used extensively. The tendency to use the plural form led to a trend toward regularization. In three of the cases noted above, this led to the following shifts in conversational English:
You say You give You have
Yet changes were also under way with the third person. In general, the ending “-eth” was replaced with “-s.” It is not clear how this development came about. However, a close reading of Shakespeare shows that the older and newer verbal forms were both used in written English at this time. For example, consider the following famous extract from The Merchant of Venice, written over the period 1596–98, in which Portia declares:
The quality of mercy is not strained,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
Here the older forms dominate. Yet elsewhere in the drama, the newer forms of the verb are seen to be well established.
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Sit, Jessica: look, how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in this motion like an angel sings
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
Interestingly, Shakespeare appears to retain the older forms “doth” and “hath” as a matter of principle.
What is particularly interesting is that there is strong evidence that, while the older “eth” ending continued to be written, it was pronounced as if it were “-s.” In his Special Help to Orthography, published in 1643, Richard Hodges comments that although it was customary to write such words as “leadeth it, noteth it, raketh it, per-fumeth it,” and so forth, in everyday speech it was customary to say “leads it, notes it, rakes it, per-fumes it,” and so on. English not being a phonetic language, words can undergo significant changes in pronunciation without any need for changes in their spelling. The implications of this are, to say the least, remarkable. Would those who read the King James Bible aloud in church have pronounced “knoweth” as “knows”? For example, consider 1 John 2:9–11:
He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.
Notice how many “-eth” verbs occur in this brief section. Richard Hodges's comments might lead us to think that this passage could have been read aloud using the modern “-s” endings in many cases.
This is an extremely important issue when dealing with the question of how works that make extensive use of the language of the King James Bible should be sung An excellent example, of course, is provided by Handel's Messiah. The opening words of this oratorio are taken from Isaiah 40:1–4.
Comfort ye, my people, saith your God; speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
The quest for authenticity of performance has led to this major work being performed using period instruments, in an attempt to recreate the actual sound of the period. But what about the words that are sung? Might “crieth” actually have been sung as “cries”? The issues raised are fascinating!
So why did the King James translators use an archaic verbal form in what was meant to be a modern translation? Again, the answer seems to lie with the rules provided for the translators, which more or less bound them to use the language of 1525 in their translations. A comparison of Tyndale's translation of Matthew 7:1–7 (see above) with the King James Bible shows that precisely the same older Middle English verbal endings are found in both translations. In Tyndale's time, they were in general use; by 1611, they were virtually obsolete.
3. ‘HIS’ AND ‘ITS’
Middle English did not know the word “its,” meaning “belonging to it.” In its place, Middle English used the word “his.” This word could mean one of two things: “belonging to him,” and “belonging to it.” By 1600, however, the word “his” was increasingly being used solely as the masculine possessive pronoun. Yet the same word was still used, even if increasingly rarely, to act as the neuter possessive pronoun. Even though “its” was unquestionably gaining the upper hand, it had yet to achieve dominance. This is reflected in the King James Bible, which uses the term “its” only once, at Leviticus 25:5:
That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land.
This leads to a number of features of the King James Bible that seem a little puzzling to modern readers. Consider the translation of Matthew 5:13, one of the more familiar sayings of the Sermon on the Mount:
Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted?
This needs to be read twice before the issue becomes clear. To modern English readers, “salt” appears to be treated as a masculine noun in the second phrase, and a neuter noun in the third. This apparent absurdity needs to be appreciated in light of our discussion above. At this point, the translators have retained the increasingly rare usage of “his” as the neuter possessive pronoun. While this was normal in Middle English, it was dropping out of general use.
So how could the King James translators respond to this? They were standing at a linguistic junction, in which the word “its” was gradually gaining acceptance—but had yet to be universally recognized. To use the word “its” would cause confusion or bewilderment to at least some of their readers. On the other hand, they were aware that the use of the word “his” to mean “belonging to it” was passing out of use, and to make extensive use of this word would therefore cause confusion to later readers once this development had reached its inevitable conclusion. So what could be done? In the end, the only viable solution was to use a clumsy paraphrase, based on the word “thereof.” Instead of writing—as we would today—“its width was five feet”—the King James translators rendered this as “the width thereof was five feet.” It was clumsy, and arguably led to some of the least elegant passages in the entire King James Bible. But the use of this device avoided the problem caused by the change in English usage around this time.
The difficulties raised by the continuing use of “his” as the equivalent of the modern word “its” was felt especially by the First Westminster Company of translators, responsible for the “Pentateuch;” and “the Story from Joshua to the first Book of Chronicles, exclusive.” It is clear that this company wanted to avoid the use of “his” as the neuter possessive pronoun wherever possible. This section of the Old Testament, however, included an unusually high number of passages that virtually demanded its usage—especially eleven passages giving details of measurements of buildings. Consider Exodus 30:2–3, which describes the measurements and structure of an altar.
A cubit shall be the length thereof, and a cubit the breadth thereof; foursquare shall it be: and two cubits shall be the height thereof: the horns thereof shall be of the same. And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold, the top thereof, and the sides thereof round about, and the horns thereof; and thou shalt make unto it a crown of gold round about.
The extensive and highly cumbersome use of “thereof reflects a deliberate decision to avoid the use of the possessive pronoun. Note how the altar is clearly regarded as neuter, forcing the use of the neuter possessive. A modern translation (we here use the Revised Standard Version) makes this point clear:
A cubit shall be its_ length, and a cubit its. breadth; it shall be square, and two cubits shall be its height; its horns shall be of one piece with it. And you shall overlay it with pure gold, its top and its sides round about and its. horns; and you shall make for it a molding of gold round about.
The natural use of “its” at seven points—here underlined for clarity—contrasts sharply with the clumsy construction used by the First Westminster Company to avoid the use of “his” as a neuter possessive pronoun.
The general points raised in this section are of considerable interest, in that they suggest that the King James Bible would actually have been perceived to be slightly old-fashioned and dated even from the first day of its publication. This naturally leads us on to deal with the question of the reception of the King James Bible.