God has cast me into the mire: in this verse, as in verse 18, God is not mentioned in the Hebrew. Revised Standard Version, which had pain as the subject in verse 18, now introduces God as the subject. The sense of this line is not in doubt: “God throws me down in the mud.” In verse 18b, if God has grabbed Job by the coat collar, then this is the follow-up event.

And I have become like dust and ashes: here Job echoes the language of Abraham in Genesis 18.27, “I am but dust and ashes.” There, as here, dust and ashes expresses a person’s lowly state or humiliation. Good News Translation has done this in English with “I am no better than dirt.” In 42.6 Job concludes his final answer to God by repenting “in dust and ashes.” In some languages it may not be clear that like dust and ashes means “humble.” In some language areas ashes are associated with mourning rituals. Accordingly we may have to translate, for example, “God has humbled me like dust and ashes,” “God has made me low like dust and ashes,” or, avoiding the simile, “God has humbled me,” or idiomatically, for example, “God has made me a person with bowed head.”

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 .