The Bible and the English Language - By the skin of your teeth You meet your co-worker in the hallway. She seems frazzled and relieved at the same time. “Hey, what’s up? You look like you’ve had a rough morning!” “I just got out of my manager’s office. He wanted to drag me into the all-day meeting about our unit’s financial review.” “Oh no, that would be miserable!” “So I told him how much work I had to do and how hard it would be for me to be involved in the meeting. At first he kept insisting I had to be there, so I just kept telling him about the things I had to get done. Finally he agreed, but I think I got out of that one by the skin of my teeth!” Skin? Teeth? Her teeth seem clean. I don’t see any skin on them. What did she mean by that? This expression comes from a famous Bible story about a man named Job (pronounced with a long “o”, rhymes with “robe”). For reasons that Job didn’t understand until later, his good life suddenly became very bad – all his children were killed in an accident, his belongings were stolen, and he came down with a painful disease. So during this time of great suffering he said these words, found in the Bible at Job 19:20 – “To my skin and to my flesh my bones actually cleave, and I escape with the skin of my teeth.” Bible researchers have suggested various meanings regarding Job’s statement about the skin of his teeth. Some think he meant that even though all his teeth had fallen out, he at least still had his gums. Others suggest he meant that he now had very little, almost nothing, as little as something that did not even really exist, teeth skin. In any case, the expression became popular in the English language. So today when someone says that something happened or was done “by the skin of his teeth” it means “barely” and with great difficulty. So don't worry, it has nothing to do with their dental hygiene!