What Does Job 18:13 Mean in the King James?
It shall devour the strength of his skin: even the firstborn of death shall devour his strength.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Death is pictured as a parent whose firstborn carries its consuming force into the body.
THE MEANING
The verse names a consuming force that reaches the body’s covering and its strength. Death appears as a parent, with its firstborn as the active force doing the consuming.
THE ROOT
יֹאכַל
yōkhal
GROWS FROM
אכל
ʾ-k-l
eat, consume
Behind “devour” is the ordinary verb “eat,” repeated for both phrases: the force consumes the body’s covering and its strength. The image is bodily and immediate.
ALSO GROWS
ʾokhel: food
אֹכֶל
The same root names what is eaten, linking the act of consumption with its object.
maʾakhal: food, something edible
מַאֲכָל
This branch keeps the root’s sense of eating concrete: something is taken into and consumed.
בְּכוֹר
bekhor
GROWS FROM
בכר
b-k-r
be first; be the firstborn or first to emerge
The phrase gives death a generative image: its firstborn is the foremost thing it brings forth, and that offspring itself devours. This root also names birthright and firstfruits, carrying both sequence and primacy.
ALSO GROWS
bekhorah: birthright, firstborn status
בְּכוֹרָה
It shows that “firstborn” can carry a position of precedence as well as an order of birth.
bikkurim: firstfruits
בִּכּוּרִים
It extends the root’s idea of what emerges first to the earliest yield.
THE PATTERN
Scripture pictures death as feeding and swallowing, then imagines death itself being swallowed.
Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling.He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it.So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.THE THREAD
Also I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth.“Firstborn” is the same Hebrew word, בְּכוֹר (bekhor), from the root בכר (b-k-r), meaning firstborn or first to emerge. Here it names a position of primacy; in Job, death’s firstborn is the foremost force death brings forth.
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