Job 13:14 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth, &c. The sense, according to some commentators, is, Why do I torment myself? Why do I grieve so immoderately, like those persons who, in their afflictions, rend their garments, and are ready to tear their very flesh? But Bishop Patrick's paraphrase seems to accord better with the context, namely, “I am so conscious to myself of my innocence, that I must still wonder why I suffer such enraging miseries, and am exposed to so many dangers.” Henry speaks to nearly the same purpose: “Why do I suffer such agonies? I cannot but wonder that God should lay so much upon me, when he knows I am not a wicked man. He was ready, not only to rend his clothes, but even to tear his flesh, through the greatness of his affliction; and saw himself at the brink of death, and his life in his hand; yet his friends could not charge him with any enormous crime, nor could he himself discover any; no marvel then he was in such confusion.” The phrase of having his life in his hand, denotes a condition extremely dangerous. Thus Jephthah tells the Ephraimites, I put my life in my hands and passed over against the children of Ammon, Judges 12:3. That is, I exposed my life to the greatest danger. Thus Jonathan speaks of David: He put his life in his hand, and slew the Philistine, 1 Samuel 19:5. The words, says Poole, may imply “a reason of his ardent desire of liberty of speech, because he could hold his tongue no longer, but must needs tear himself to pieces, if he had not some vent for his grief.” In which sense the LXX. seem to have understood him.