Why should I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in my hand?
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 14. Why you seem to ask do I thus eagerly desire to die, ( Bible.) as if I wear tearing my own flesh, and exposing my soul to danger, ( Worthington.) like a madman? Tirinus.—Is it not better for me to address myself to God, that he would hasten my departure, than thus to tear my flesh with my teeth? Calmet.—Some have supposed that Job really did so in extreme anguish, (V. Bede) the leprosy occasioning such an insupportable irritation. Bible.—But the expression insinuates an interior anguish or despair; (Isaiah 49:26) in which sense Pythagoras enjoins, “no to eat the heart.”—Hands, in imminent danger of death. Psalms 118:109.—Saint Gregory explains it in a moral sense: “It is to manifest the intention of the heart by the actions.” Bible.