Job 30:18

With great power God ¹  grasps my clothing; ²  he binds me like the collar ³  of my tunic.

In his great power God becomes like clothing to me; he binds me like the neck of my garment.

"By a great force my garment is distorted; It binds me about as the collar of my coat.

With a strong hand, God grabs my garment. He grips me by the collar of my tunic.

I am tied hand and foot, my neck in a noose. I twist and turn.

With great force he takes a grip of my clothing, pulling me by the neck of my coat.

With violence he seizes my garment; he grasps me by the collar of my tunic.

By great force my garment is disfigured; It binds me about as the collar of my coat.

With great power God ¹  grasps my clothing; ²  he binds me like the collar ³  of my tunic.

¹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

² 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.

³ 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.”