Description
The cloth for wrapping a baby was a kind of bandage about the width of a hand and several meters (yards) long. This strip of cloth was wrapped around a child from shoulders to feet. This practice, technically known as “swaddling,” was done in the belief that the child’s limbs would grow straight if they were tightly bound to his sides immediately after birth.
Translation
Some cultures may have a similar custom of wrapping a newborn infant. Where this is known, translators should use the word for the cloth in which the child is wrapped.
In the second line of JOB 38:9 God says he wrapped the newborn sea in darkness like an infant is wrapped in cloth. Some translations try to maintain this metaphor by saying “I made … thick darkness its swaddling band” (NASB) or “I gave him the dark fog for a diaper” (GECL, SPCL). CEV changes the metaphor by rendering the whole verse as “and wrapped it in blankets of thickest fog.” Others (for example, GNT and NCV) maintain the act of wrapping without keeping the picture of wrapping a baby. In some languages it will be necessary to avoid the image of “swaddling band” (RSV) and render the whole verse as follows: “I am the one who covered the sea with clouds and made it dark.”
See also the discussion at Bandage.
Patch: See Patch.