Translation

YLT

A hyper-literal English translation by Scottish biblical scholar Robert Young (1822-1888), first published in 1862 and most-circulated in its posthumous 3rd revised edition of 1898. YLT's distinctive commitment is preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar, verb tense, word order, particle repetition, at the deliberate cost of natural English. The result is an English Bible that reads roughly as the Hebrew or Greek would have to a reader who could parse the original directly. In the public domain worldwide. Included in the Codex's four-public-domain sandwich alongside ASV, WEB, and KJV for its uniquely-literal preservation of original-language grammar.

History

1822: Robert Young born in Edinburgh, Scotland
1845-46: Young works as bookseller and self-taught Hebrew/Greek/Syriac/Arabic scholar
1856: publishes Analytical Concordance to the Bible (Young's Concordance), still in print; foundational reference work for English-language word-study
1862: first edition of YLT published (Young printed and distributed the first run himself in Edinburgh)
1864: second edition with minor revisions
1888: Robert Young dies
1898: third revised edition posthumous, prepared by Young's executors; this is the version in modern circulation
1980s-present: numerous public-domain reprints; YLT is included in Bible-study apps (e-Sword, Logos, Blue Letter Bible, Bible Hub) precisely for its hyper-literal value

The translator

Robert Young (1822-1888) was an autodidact Edinburgh bookseller turned biblical-language scholar. He learned Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, and Arabic without formal university training, supporting himself by selling books while teaching himself the Semitic languages. His Analytical Concordance to the Bible (1879) systematically catalogues every English word in the KJV against the underlying Hebrew or Greek term, distinguishing where the same English word translates different originals and where the same original is translated differently. It is one of the most-used reference works in 20th-century English-language Bible study. Young served as the Edinburgh agent for the Free Church of Scotland Mission to India, contributing to mission-Bible work in Indian languages. His translational philosophy reflects the autodidact's commitment to letting the source-language speak through the English rather than smoothing it into familiar idiom.

Textual basis

OT: Masoretic Text
NT: Textus Receptus (the same family used by the KJV; not the critical text used by ASV and most subsequent modern translations). YLT therefore retains the longer ending of Mark, the pericope adulterae, the Johannine Comma, Acts 8:37, and the TR reading of 1 Tim 3:16, see "Notable / problematic verses" below
Apocrypha: not included (Protestant 66-book canon)

Translation philosophy

Hyper-literal mechanical equivalence. Young's stated principle in the 1898 preface: "to give as nearly as possible word for word the very form and letter of the original." The translation reads less as English literature than as a parsing aid for the original. Distinguishing features:

Hebrew verb tenses preserved. Young translates the Hebrew perfect as English perfect ("hath given") and the Hebrew imperfect as English present ("giveth") even where English narrative convention would expect simple past. The result: "And God said, Let light be; and light is" (Gen 1:3), Hebrew imperfect rendered as English present, where almost every other translation uses past.
Hebrew/Greek word order preserved wherever English grammar permits, including unusual front-loaded constructions and parenthetical particles.
Greek tense distinctions preserved. Aorists translated mechanically; present-tense verbs preserved as English present even in narrative.
Particle repetition preserved. The Hebrew vav (and) at sentence start is reproduced; intensifying duplications ("dying thou shalt die") are preserved.
"Jehovah" throughout the OT for the Tetragrammaton (יהוה), following the same convention as ASV (1901, 39 years later). YLT is the earliest major English translation to use "Jehovah" consistently throughout the OT.
"Lord" for adonai; "God" for elohim; the YHWH/adonai distinction the KJV obscures with capitalized LORD is preserved by Young as Jehovah/Lord.
Brackets indicate words supplied for English grammar where the Hebrew or Greek does not have them.

Strengths

Most-literal mainstream English translation ever published. YLT preserves source-language grammar more rigorously than ASV, NASB, or LSB. Invaluable for word-study, tense-analysis, and syntactic parsing where the reader can't consult Hebrew or Greek directly.
Hebrew verb-tense preservation is uniquely valuable for OT theology, perfect/imperfect distinctions that disappear in fluent English translations are visible at a glance.
Greek aorist/present/perfect distinctions preserved, useful for NT exegesis where verb-aspect carries theological weight (e.g., justification language in Romans).
Public domain worldwide; freely usable in apps, study tools, derivative works, commercial republication.
Textus Receptus base, useful for those wanting a TR-tradition translation as a comparison against critical-text translations (ASV, NASB, ESV, NIV, NRSV).
Distinct from KJV despite shared TR base, YLT's literalism reveals translation choices the KJV smooths over, making it a useful KJV companion.
Robert Young's concordance, the Analytical Concordance to the Bible (1879) keyed to YLT and KJV is still one of the most-used English-language word-study tools.

Weaknesses

Difficult English by design. The hyper-literal philosophy produces sentences that violate English grammatical convention and require slow reading. "And God saith, 'Let light be'" (Gen 1:3) sounds strange to ear and eye and is one of the milder examples.
Hebrew verb-tense rendering misleading for English readers. The Hebrew imperfect does not necessarily correspond to English present; the perfect does not necessarily correspond to English past. Young's mechanical mapping can mislead a reader who takes the tenses as English-native cues.
Textus Receptus base reflects 16th/17th-century Greek scholarship; the critical text (NA28/UBS5) is now the academic standard. YLT preserves longer readings (Mark 16:9-20, John 7:53-8:11, 1 John 5:7, Acts 8:37) that the critical text rejects on manuscript-evidence grounds.
"Jehovah" rendering is etymologically a misreading of the Tetragrammaton (the actual vocalization is closer to "Yahweh"; "Jehovah" comes from inserting the Masoretic vowel-points of adonai into YHWH).
Victorian English vocabulary and verb forms ("thee/thou/saith/giveth/hath"), Young writes in the same register as the contemporaneous Revised Version, not the smoother 20th-century English of NASB or ESV.
Never adopted for pew use. YLT is a study Bible, not a lectern or pew Bible; its hyper-literalism is unsuited for public reading or memorization.
Limited commentary footnotes in the original Young editions; subsequent reprints often add explanatory notes but the base text is sparse.

Notable / problematic verses

OT Tetragrammaton, "Jehovah" used throughout the OT (a YLT contribution that precedes ASV's adoption of the same convention by 39 years)
Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning of God's preparing the heavens and the earth", Young reads the Hebrew bereshit bara elohim as a temporal clause modifying v. 2 rather than as an independent absolute statement; this is the same interpretive option Rashi defends and modern translations like NRSV adopt
Genesis 1:2, "the earth hath existed waste and void", Hebrew perfect hayetah rendered as English perfect rather than the more conventional "was"
Genesis 1:3, "And God saith, 'Let light be;' and light is", Hebrew imperfect/perfect rendered as English present
Mark 16:9-20, included in main text (TR-based); no critical bracketing
John 7:53-8:11, included in main text (TR-based)
1 John 5:7, Johannine Comma preserved ("in the heaven there are three who are testifying, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these, the three, are one"), TR reading
Acts 8:37, preserved (Ethiopian eunuch's confession), TR reading
1 Timothy 3:16, "God was manifested in flesh" (TR reading; ASV's critical-text base reads "He who was manifested")
Isaiah 7:14, "the virgin is conceiving", Hebrew imperfect preserved
John 1:1, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (standard rendering)
John 1:1 (Greek tense), preserved as English imperfect throughout the prologue, reflecting Greek imperfect
Romans 1:17, "a righteousness of God in it is revealed, from faith to faith, according as it hath been written, 'And the righteous one by faith shall live'", Greek word order preserved, ek pisteōs eis pistin rendered mechanically
Romans 3:23, "for all did sin, and are come short of the glory of God", Greek aorist hēmarton preserved as English simple past
2 Timothy 3:16, "every Writing is God-breathed", theopneustos rendered with the unusual but accurate "God-breathed" decades before theopneustos discourse became standard
Ecclesiastes 1:2, "Vanity of vanities, said the Preacher, Vanity of vanities: the whole is vanity", hakkol hevel rendered as the universal-quantifier "the whole"
Salvation language, often rendered as "deliverance" rather than "salvation", preserving the Hebrew yeshu'ah / Greek sōtēria range that includes physical rescue

Notable users / influence

Word-study reference in conservative evangelical, Reformed, restorationist, and dispensationalist traditions for over 150 years
Used by dispensational and Bible-conference movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Plymouth Brethren, Scofield circles, prophecy conferences) for its tense-preservation in eschatological texts
Cited in restorationist movements (Stone-Campbell, Churches of Christ, Adventist) that prized hyper-literal translation as a corrective to perceived KJV smoothing
Robert Young's Analytical Concordance (1879), still in print in updated editions, remains one of the most-used English-language word-study tools, most users of the concordance encounter YLT as the keyed translation
Widely included in Bible-software (e-Sword, Logos, Olive Tree, Blue Letter Bible, Bible Hub, BibleGateway) as the hyper-literal English option for exegetical parsing
Studied as a translation-philosophy specimen in courses on Bible translation (alongside Buber-Rosenzweig's Verdeutschung and Everett Fox's Schocken Bible, both of which adopt similar hyper-literal philosophies for the OT)

Public-domain status

YLT was published in 1862 and 1898 in Edinburgh; both editions are unambiguously in the public domain worldwide. The text is freely usable in any context, websites, apps, study materials, derivative works, commercial republication, redistributable Bible-translation packs. This makes YLT (alongside KJV, ASV, and WEB) one of the four public-domain English Bibles the Codex uses for passage-stub sandwiches per the four-translation convention.

YLT