24:7 They spend the night naked because they lack clothing;
they have no covering against the cold.
24:10 They go about naked, without clothing,
and go hungry while they carry the sheaves. 1
27:16 If he piles up silver like dust
and stores up clothing like mounds of clay,
30:18 With great power God 2 grasps my clothing; 3
he binds me like the collar 4 of my tunic.
1 sn The point should not be missed – amidst abundant harvests, carrying sheaves about, they are still going hungry.
2 tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
3 tc This whole verse is difficult. The first problem is that this verb in the MT means “is disguised [or disfigured],” indicating that Job’s clothes hang loose on him. But many take the view that the verb is a phonetic variant of חָבַשׁ (khavash, “to bind; to seize”) and that the Hitpael form is a conflation of the third and second person because of the interchange between them in the passage (R. Gordis, Job, 335). The commentaries list a number of conjectural emendations, but the image in the verse is probably that God seizes Job by the garment and throws him down.
4 tn The phrase “like the collar” is difficult, primarily because their tunics did not have collars. A translation of “neck” would suit better. Some change the preposition to בּ (bet), getting a translation “by the neck of my tunic.”