“It devours parts of his skin, The firstborn of death devours his limbs.
Parallel translations
- WEB The members of his body shall be devoured. The firstborn of death shall devour his members.
- KJV It shall devour the strength of his skin: even the firstborn of death shall devour his strength.
- 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.
- 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 49:3“Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength; excelling in dignity, and excelling in power.
- Isa 14:30The firstborn of the poor will eat, and the needy will lie down in safety; and I will kill your root with famine, and your remnant will be killed.
- Job 17:16Shall it go down with me to the gates of Sheol, or descend together into the dust?”
- Jonah 2:6I went down to the bottoms of the mountains. The earth barred me in forever: yet have you brought up my life from the pit, Yahweh my God.
- Zech 14:12This will be the plague with which Yahweh will strike all the peoples who have fought against Jerusalem: their flesh will consume away while they stand on their feet, and their eyes will consume away in their sockets, and their tongue will consume away in their mouth.
- Rev 6:8And behold, a pale horse, and he who sat on it, his name was Death. Hades followed with him. Authority over one fourth of the earth, to kill with the sword, with famine, with death, and by the wild animals of the earth was given to him.
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.