Rabbi Chaim Palagi, known in later rabbinic literature as the Chabif, was born in Izmir, in the Ottoman Empire, on 19 Shevat 5547 (7 February 1787). His father, Rabbi Yaakov Palagi, was a rabbi and kabbalist, and his mother was Kali Kaden. His maternal grandfather, Rabbi Yosef Raphael Chazan, author of Chikrei Lev, became Rishon LeTzion at the end of his life.

As a youth he attended his grandfather, who was also his teacher, and he also studied under Rabbi Pinchas di Segura and Rabbi Yitzchak Gatigno. He wrote that from the time he could understand until the age of twenty he studied day and night without interruption. In 1813 he received rabbinic ordination from his grandfather and from Rabbi Chaim Yitzchak Algazi.

He declined public office during his father's lifetime. In 1828 he became a dayan and head of the Beit Yaakov Rabbi yeshiva in Izmir, where he himself had studied, and in 1837 head of the city's great rabbinical court. In 1855 he was appointed Hakham Bashi, chief rabbi of Izmir, an appointment confirmed by Sultan Abdülmecid I. He worked for the poor, for the founding of a Jewish hospital, with the help of Baron Rothschild and Sir Moses Montefiore, and enacted ordinances to secure the education of poor children. Halachic questions reached him from many countries.

He began writing at sixteen and composed some eighty works on Scripture, Talmud, halacha, kabbalah, ethics and responsa. The fire that swept Izmir's Jewish quarter on 11 Av 5601 (1841) destroyed much of his manuscripts, part of which he later rewrote. His books include Kaf HaChaim, Lev Chaim, Ruach Chaim, Chaim BeYad, Nefesh Chaim, Moed Lechol Chai, Tochachat Chaim and Birkat Moadecha LeChaim.

He passed away on 17 Shevat 5628 (10 February 1868), one day after completing Birkat Moadecha LeChaim. His funeral was escorted by Turkish troops, a rare honor. Originally buried in the old cemetery of Izmir, his grave was moved in the 1920s to the Gürçeşme cemetery, where people still come to pray.