Job 30:17-19

30:17 Night pierces ¹  my bones; ² 

my gnawing pains ³  never cease.

30:18 With great power God ⁴  grasps my clothing; ⁵ 

he binds me like the collar ⁶  of my tunic.

30:19 He has flung me into the mud,

and I have come to resemble dust and ashes.

Job 30:29-30

30:29 I have become a brother to jackals

and a companion of ostriches. ⁷ 

30:30 My skin has turned dark on me; ⁸ 

my body ⁹  is hot with fever. ¹⁰ 

[30:17]  ¹ tn The subject of the verb “pierces” can be the night (personified), or it could be God (understood), leaving “night” to be an adverbial accusative of time – “at night he pierces.”

[30:17]  ² tc The MT concludes this half-verse with “upon me.” That phrase is not in the LXX, and so many commentators delete it as making the line too long.

[30:17]  ³ tn Heb “my gnawers,” which is open to several interpretations. The NASB and NIV take it as “gnawing pains”; cf. NRSV “the pain that gnaws me.” Some suggest worms in the sores (7:5). The LXX has “my nerves,” a view accepted by many commentators.

[30:18]  ⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[30:18]  ⁵ 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.

[30:18]  ⁶ 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.”

[30:29]  ⁷ sn The point of this figure is that Job’s cries of lament are like the howls and screeches of these animals, not that he lives with them. In Job 39:13 the female ostrich is called “the wailer.”

[30:30]  ⁸ tn The MT has “become dark from upon me,” prompting some editions to supply the verb “falls from me” (RSV, NRSV), or “peels” (NIV).

[30:30]  ⁹ tn The word “my bones” may be taken as a metonymy of subject, the bony framework indicating the whole body.

[30:30]  ¹⁰ tn The word חֹרֶב (khorev) also means “heat.” The heat in this line is not that of the sun, but obviously a fever.