Text -- Job 30:18 (NET)

30:18 With great power God grasps my clothing; he binds me like the collar of my tunic.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Job 30:18

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.”