It shall devour the strength of his skin: even the firstborn of death shall devour his strength.
Parallel translations
- WEB The members of his body shall be devoured. The firstborn of death shall devour his members.
- BSB It devours patches of his skin; the firstborn of death devours his limbs.
- NKJV It devours patches of his skin; The firstborn of death devours his limbs.
- NASB “It devours parts of his skin, The firstborn of death devours his limbs.
- NLT Disease eats their skin; death devours their limbs.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Disease devours the wicked man's body, the firstborn of death consuming his limbs. A deadly affliction destroys him from within.
Overview
Bildad describes the godless wasted by a fatal sickness, vividly called the firstborn of death, as it eats away his flesh. The phrase personifies a most deadly disease that brings him to the grave. The graphic picture of bodily decay underscores the friends' insistence on the wicked's doom, while pointing, by sad contrast, to Job's own diseased body though he was upright before God.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Gen 49:3Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power:
- Isa 14:30And the firstborn of the poor shall feed, and the needy shall lie down in safety: and I will kill thy root with famine, and he shall slay thy remnant.
- Job 17:16They shall go down to the bars of the pit, when our rest together is in the dust.
- Jonah 2:6I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my God.
- Zech 14:12And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.
- Rev 6:8And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Job's cry for a mediator who can lay his hand on both God and man, and his confidence that 'my Redeemer lives' and will stand on the earth, reaches forward to Jesus the living Redeemer.
How Job 18:13 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.