With violence it seizes my garment: as the Revised Standard Version footnote shows, the Hebrew has “my garment is disfigured.” Revised Standard Version takes the subject to be “pain” from the previous verse. Dhorme and others understand God to be the subject, and so God is depicted as grabbing Job by his clothes and throwing him down. Revised Standard Version follows the Septuagint in changing “is disfigured” to seizes. This involves the dropping of one letter in Hebrew. The line may be rendered, for example, “God has brutally grabbed, seized, taken hold of my clothes.” Good News Translation has reversed the order of the two lines in this verse to give a more logical order for English but does not change the text, and so “twists my clothes out of shape” translates the Hebrew “my garment is disfigured.” The Hebrew Old Testament Text Project committee was divided, one half giving the Hebrew text as we have it a “C” rating, and the other half giving the Septuagint a “C” rating as well. Consequently they suggest either text for translation. Hebrew Old Testament Text Project understands the Hebrew text to mean “my skin is disfigured,” and the Septuagint to mean “he seizes my garment.” The Hebrew for my garment may be a metaphor referring to the skin.

It binds me about like the collar of my tunic: in Revised Standard Version it refers again to “the pain” from verse 17 and from the first line of this verse. This line is not clear in its reference to the binding like the collar of the tunic, or outer garment. The collar (literally “mouth”) is depicted as being tight, but Middle Eastern garments were not tight. It may be better to take this as a generalized simile and translate as in Bible en français courant, “He grabs me by the neck, like a collar that fits too tightly.” Without the simile the whole verse may be rendered, for example, “God grabs my clothes violently, he takes hold of me by the collar of my coat.” We may also attempt to remain closer to the Hebrew form by saying, for example, “and seizes me and wrinkles my skin. It clings to me like the collar of my tunic.”

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 .