# KJV and Exo 39:33



## KMK (Dec 28, 2013)

Exo 39:33 KJV



> And they brought the tabernacle unto Moses, the tent, and all his furniture, his taches, his boards, his bars, and his pillars, and his sockets,



Why do the older English translations, like the KJV, use 'his' while the newer English translations use 'it's'? As I understand it, both מִשְׁכָּן and אֹהֶל are masculine. Is this why it is translated 'his'? Or do the older translations leave open the possibility that 'his' might refer to Moses or even Jehovah?


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## au5t1n (Dec 28, 2013)

KMK said:


> Why do the older English translations, like the KJV, use 'his' while the newer English translations use 'it's'? As I understand it, both מִשְׁכָּן and אֹהֶל are masculine. Is this why it is translated 'his'? Or do the older translations leave open the possibility that 'his' might refer to Moses or even Jehovah?



I think it's just that in older English, it was more common to use masculine and feminine pronouns in reference to objects, as is very common in other languages.


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## Rev. Todd Ruddell (Dec 28, 2013)

That's correct. It's like speaking about a city or country in the feminine, as in the lyrics of "God Bless America". "Stand beside her, and guide her". The AV is translating the masculine pronominal suffix of the Hebrew literally, as "his". Our modern English tends away from that application of gender to such objects.


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## KMK (Dec 28, 2013)

Thanks for the responses. That explains a lot.


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## Logan (Dec 28, 2013)

When I was working on some of Pyle's books I noticed that objects would be referred to like that. For example it would say "the sword his scabbard" instead of "the sword's scabbard". I guess our current apostrophe s (possessive) is a contraction of this old way of speaking.


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## One Little Nail (Dec 28, 2013)

This post is just asking for a K.J.B. Advocate to come in now a say something like, see there you go this just goes to show
that The King James Bible is still a better Formal Equivalence Translation when it comes to Translating the Case Sensitive & 
Gender Specific Language of The Original Languages of the Scripture into the English Language,so there you have it!


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## VictorBravo (Dec 28, 2013)

One Little Nail said:


> This post is just asking for a K.J.B. Advocate



Nice of you to make this point for him to prevent a derailing diversion....


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