PRINCIPAL

prin'-si-pal: Appears in the King James Version as a translation of nine Hebrew words (fewer in the Revised Version (British and American)), in one case (Isaiah 28:25) being used quite wrongly and in 2 Kings 25:19 (Jeremiah 52:25); 1 Chronicles 24:31 gives a wrong sense (all corrected in the Revised Version (British and American)). In 1 Ki 4:5, "principal officer" (the American Standard Revised Version "chief minister") is an arbitrary translation of kohen to avoid "priest" (so the English Revised Version; compare 2 Samuel 8:18).

From the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Edited by James Orr, published in 1939 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.