Verse 26 continues the description of the wicked person’s foolish defiance of God. It is his trust in his own strength that is described.

Running stubbornly against him translates the Hebrew “runs against him with neck.” Numerous suggestions have been made by scholars to explain “with neck,” which is rendered stubbornly by Revised Standard Version. Tur-Sinai interprets the expression to refer to a piece of neck armor worn in battle. Some understand it to mean “with a stiff neck,” and so “insolently, stubbornly.” Others translate “headlong,” meaning to charge straight ahead with the head lowered. While all these meanings are possible, the context seems to require something like Revised Standard Version. Good News Translation has transposed verses 26 and 27 so that verse 27 is the first line. Good News Translation‘s second line is Revised Standard Version verse 26a.

With a thick-bossed shield: see 13.12 for a discussion of this decorative part of the shield. Verse 26 may be rendered, for example, “The wicked person stubbornly attacks God, rushing at him with his shield in hand” or “Holding his shield up the evil person lowers his head and attacks God.” In languages in which there is no word for shield, it may be possible to say, for example, “The wicked man tries to protect himself as he runs to attack God.”

Because he has covered his face with his fat: here is another reason for the foolishness of the wicked person’s attack on God. This may refer to the fat person who has lived luxuriously and is too excessively fat to attack anyone physically. Such a description of living in luxury and self-indulgence is found in Psalm 73.7, “Their eyes swell out with fatness.” See also Jeremiah 5.28 and Deuteronomy 32.15. Most modern versions translate verse 27 as a nonmetaphor. A few, however, including Good News Translation, take fat as a metaphor meaning “rebellion, pride, prosperity, power.” Either is possible in translation. Some translators may find it convenient to follow the way in which Good News Translation has condensed the two lines of verse 27 and placed them before verse 26. As a nonmetaphor we may sometimes say, for example, “He does this even though he is weighted down with fat” or “… even though he is swollen with fat.” If fat is to be taken as a figure of speech, the translator may follow Good News Translation or something similar to Moffatt, “so swollen in prosperity.” Another model can be “He has become motionless from living like the rich” or “He has eaten so well he is useless.”

And gathered fat upon his loins: if fat is taken literally in the first line, it should continue the same in this line. The word for fat in line b is found only here in the Old Testament but is cognate with an Arabic verb “to be fat.” Loins here refers to the lower part of the back, but can be translated “waist, hips, middle.” Moffatt translates the line “so bloated in his wealth.” New English Bible avoids the figurative meaning, “and though his sides bulge with fat.” This line may also be rendered, for example, “and his belly is enormously fat.”

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 .