Benjacob began to write early, and composed short poems and epigrams in pure Biblical Hebrew which are among the best of their kind in Neo-Hebraic literature. For several years he lived in Riga, where he was engaged in business, always studying and writing in his leisure hours. Later he became a publisher and book-seller and went to Leipzig, where he published his first work, "Miktamim ve-Shirim" (Epigrams and Songs), which also contains an important essay on epigrammatic composition (Leipzig, 1842). Of the other works which he published there, his corrected edition of R. Bahya ibn Pakuda's "Chovot ha-Levavot", with an introduction, a short commentary, and a biography of the author, together with notes and fragments of Joseph Kimhi's translation by H. Jellinek, is the most valuable (Leipzig, 1846; Königsberg, 1859, without the introduction).