I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin: sackcloth refers to a coarse dark material made of goat or camel hair. It is a sign of mourning and was worn next to the skin (2 Kgs 6.30). Job’s sackcloth is sewed … upon my skin, and this may suggest that he will wear it permanently, or that he wears it next to his skin. Good News Translation “I wear clothes made of sackcloth” suggests neither the one nor the other. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, however, translates “The mourning clothes are my second skin,” which implies that Job will wear them all the time. The line may be rendered, for example, “I have put mourning clothes on my body,” “I have dressed myself in the clothes of those who mourn for the dead,” or “I wear the rough cloth of those who are in mourning.” In some languages it may be necessary to give a footnote explaining sackcloth; for instance, “Mourning clothes were coarse pieces of cloth sewed together from woven goat or camel hair.”

And have laid my strength in the dust translates the Hebrew “I have thrust my horn in the dust.” To raise a person’s horn is an expression of pride, strength, or success. Here the meaning is the opposite: Job is totally “depressed, ruined, defeated.” Good News Translation “I sit here in the dust defeated” recalls the picture from 2.8, where Job sits in the ash heap scraping his sores. Have laid suggests a vigorless, passive act, whereas the word it translates refers to a determined, energetic gesture such as “thrust, jab, shove.” If the translator’s language has an equivalent metaphor, it should be used. If not, we may also say, for example, “I am ruined,” “I am totally defeated,” or actively, “he (God) has crushed me,” or “God has ground me down to dust.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, Wiliam. A Handbook on Job. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1992. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .