New ESV Cambridge Wide-Margin Bibles

In 1997, when my wife and I got married, I bought us matching Cambridge Wide-Margin KJV Bibles. Dr. Mark Minnick had recommended these Bibles for note-taking during messages and personal times of Bible study. We had our Bible-marking pens, colored pencils, and were ready to go. I spent many years in fruitful study each morning, diligently recording what I learned in the margins of my Bible. It was great.

However, in 2001, Crossway introduced the English Standard Version and I started reading the ESV during my devotions, just to see what it was like. After much evaluation, I moved to using the ESV as my primary Bible at home for reading, studying, and family devotions. The Classic Reference version I used didn’t provide much room for note-taking and I longed for the time when Cambridge would publish an ESV version of their top-of-the-line, wide-margin Bible.

Well, that long awaited time has finally come. So now, in the 12th year of our marriage, we received brand new, his and her, ESV Cambridge wide-margin Bibles with black goatskin leather. They are very nice.

I thought I would document the arrival and opening of our new Bibles. But to begin with, let’s see where we came from.


My old KJV Cambridge Wide-Margin Bible.


I spent most of my early study in the Book of Isaiah. You can see how I used colors to coordinate the text and the associated note.


I then moved to an ESV Classic Reference Bible. As you can see, it has seen its better days. This was the Bible we used to read all the way through in family devotions.


Finally, our new Bibles have arrived!


Opening the box.


His and Her ESV Cambridge Wide-Margin Bibles.


My new ESV Bible as it sits closed on my desk.


My new ESV Bible opened to Isaiah. You can see the generous margins available for note-taking.


This Bible is a Red-letter edition – not my favorite but for some reason it was significantly less expensive than the Black-letter edition on Amazon.



My new ESV with my Micron 005 Bible-marking pen ready to go.

Changes in the ESV

In 2007, Crossway started publishing a slightly modified version of the English Standard Version (ESV). This does not seem to be a much publicized event as I have not been able to find anything official from Crossway (not that I have looked that hard). Nevertheless an update has occurred. If you have Bibleworks, the changes have already been incorporated into the software through their regular update process.

So, what are these changes? There is no official list but Rick Mansfield, on his blog, This Lamp, has listed all the modifications in seven separate blog entries, each corresponding to a different section of Scripture:

Genesis - Deuteronomy
Joshua - Esther
Job - Song of Solomon
Isaiah - Malachi
Matthew - Acts
Romans - Philemon
Hebrews - Revelation


Most of these changes are very trivial but some are both interesting and significant. One of the more interesting changes occurs at Micah 5:2. In this famous messianic passage, the ESV had followed the RSV with, “…from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.” While it is possible to construct an orthodox interpretation of this wording, I was disappointed that the ESV translation committee did not change the wording found in the RSV, especially since this verse was highlighted in the 1953 BibSac article that originally criticized the RSV’s liberal bias.

The new version of the ESV reads, “…from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.” This translation choice is more literal (cf., 2 Kings 10:27 for the only other usage) and preserves a deliberate play on words based on the idea of “bringing forth” (as seen in the KJV below):

"yet out of thee shall he come forth) (5:2)
"whose goings forth have been from of old" (5:2)
"until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth" (5:3)


It’s still not perfect, though, because I believe the Hebrew indicates that the “comings” or “goings” are plural (referring to His repeated Theophanies that have occurred since ancient days), rather than singular as it now stands in the ESV. The singular forces an interpretation along the lines of the Messiah’s earthly descent from the family of David, much like, or exactly like, the use of “origin” did in the original wording. My guess is that they changed "origin” because it was too offensive (indicating to some a non-eternal origin of Christ) but in a way that preserved the orthodox interpretation that they preferred.

I still beleive that the best of rending of the underlying Hebrew word is "goings forth" as translated by the KJV, NKJV, and the NASB.