Why do I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in my hand?
All Commentaries on Job 13:14 Go To Job 13
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Why you seem to ask do I thus eagerly desire to die, (Haydock) as if I were 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, (Ven. Bede) the leprosy occasioning such an insupportable irritation. (Haydock)
But the expression insinuates an interior anguish or despair; (Isaias xlix. 26.) in which sense Pythagoras enjoins, "not to eat the heart. "
Hands, in imminent danger of death, Psalm cxviii. 109.
St. Gregory explains it in a moral sense: "It is to manifest the intention of the heart by the actions. "(Haydock)
