Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in mine hand?
The verse belongs to Job 11-13, in the midst of Job's answers to the constant accusations, both stated and implied, brought by his friends. That portion itself lies within the larger block of Job 8-27, which ends with his friends ceasing to trouble him and breaks off in the middle of his final reply. The surrounding chapters set forth the great problems of overruling providence and of sin and suffering. In them God is disciplining Job and bringing him through the fire of affliction, while his three friends charge him with sin and insist his sufferings come because of that sin.
In wording, the Hebrew nephesh, often rendered as soul, is used here with the sense of life. The verse thus stands among Old Testament texts where nephesh is translated as life or lives. The passage warns against misjudging afflicted fellow human beings today in the same way Job's friends misjudged him.
The verse belongs to Job 11-13, in the midst of Job's answers to the constant accusations, both stated and implied, brought by his friends. That portion itself lies within the larger block of Job 8-27, which ends with his friends ceasing to trouble him and breaks off in the middle of his final reply. The surrounding chapters set forth the great problems of overruling providence and of sin and suffering. In them God is disciplining Job and bringing him through the fire of affliction, while his three friends charge him with sin and insist his sufferings come because of that sin.
In wording, the Hebrew nephesh, often rendered as soul, is used here with the sense of life. The verse thus stands among Old Testament texts where nephesh is translated as life or lives. The passage warns against misjudging afflicted fellow human beings today in the same way Job's friends misjudged him.