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Job

About this book
Chapter 18

1 Then Bildad the Shuhite answered: 2 “How long until you make an end of words? You must consider, and then we can talk. 3 Why should we be regarded as beasts, and considered stupid in your sight? 4 You who tear yourself to pieces in your anger, will the earth be abandoned for your sake? Or will a rock be moved from its place? 5 “Yes, the lamp of the wicked is extinguished; his flame of fire does not shine. 6 The light in his tent grows dark; his lamp above him is extinguished. 7 His vigorous steps are restricted, and his own counsel throws him down. 8 For he has been thrown into a net by his feet, and he wanders into a mesh. 9 A trap seizes him by the heel; a snare grips him. 10 A rope is hidden for him on the ground, and a trap for him lies on the path. 11 Terrors frighten him on all sides and dog his every step. 12 Calamity is hungry for him, and misfortune is ready at his side. 13 It eats away parts of his skin; the most terrible death devours his limbs.⁠ 14 He is dragged from the security of his tent, and marched off to the king of terrors. 15 Fire resides in his tent; over his residence burning sulfur is scattered. 16 Below his roots dry up, and his branches wither above. 17 His memory perishes from the earth, he has no name in the land. 18 He is driven from light into darkness and is banished from the world. 19 He has neither children nor descendants among his people, no survivor in those places he once stayed. 20 People of the west are appalled at his fate; people of the east are seized with horror, saying, 21 ‘Surely such is the residence of an evil man; and this is the place of one who has not known God.’”

Texts in conversation

Compare KTU 1.5 I:7 and Job 18:13

Ancient Near East, Ugaritic · Hebrew Bible

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Summary

The firstborn of Death in Job 18, a phrase found nowhere else in the Bible, may draw on Mot's divine identity at Ugarit, where he is El's son, making a deadly illness appear as Death's own agent.

Passages

KTU 1.5 I:7

Ancient Near East, Ugaritic · Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit
Though you struck Litan the wriggling serpent, finished off the writhing serpent, Encircler-with-seven-heads, the skies will be hot, they will shine when I tear you in pieces: I shall devour you, elbows, blood and forearms; You will indeed go down into the throat of divine Mot (death), into the maw of the Beloved of El, the hero. The gods departed and did not stay. Then they set their faces towards the lord of the heights of Sapan, and Gupan and Ugar said: Message of divine Mot (death), word of the Beloved of El, the hero: My appetite is the appetite of the lion in the wasteland as the desire of the shark is in the sea; as wild bulls yearn for pools, or the hind longs for the spring. Look, in truth does my throat devour clay and with both my hands I devour them.
1350–1185 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in KTU

Job 18:13

Hebrew Bible
5 “Yes, the lamp of the wicked is extinguished; his flame of fire does not shine. 6 The light in his tent grows dark; his lamp above him is extinguished. 7 His vigorous steps are restricted, and his own counsel throws him down. 8 For he has been thrown into a net by his feet, and he wanders into a mesh. 9 A trap seizes him by the heel; a snare grips him. 10 A rope is hidden for him on the ground, and a trap for him lies on the path. 11 Terrors frighten him on all sides and dog his every step. 12 Calamity is hungry for him, and misfortune is ready at his side. 13 It eats away parts of his skin; the most terrible death devours his limbs. 14 He is dragged from the security of his tent, and marched off to the king of terrors.
500–401 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Job

References

“... Though the deity -+Mot ('Death') occurs frequently in Canaanite and Israelite lore, the expression bikor mowet (translated either 'First Born of Death' or 'First Born Death') occurs only in Job 18:13 in a con- text having to do with death and disease. [...] In order to describe the ancient Near Eastern background for the expression 'First-born of Death' scholars have looked to the Ugaritic and Mesopotamian literature which mention various deities associated with death and disease. Three deities (Mot. -+Resheph, and Namtar) have been pro- moted as particularly relevant to understand- ing the connotation of bikor mowet in Job 18: 13. The Ugaritic texts are our single most important source for depicting the Canaanite deity Mot ('Death'). Yet even in these texts we are told little about Mot's immediate family or ancestry. He bears the epithets 'the son of -+EI' (bn ibn) and 'Beloved of EI' (yddlmdd if), yet no reference is made to whether he was the eldest child. [...] Biblical scholars, depending on the degree to which they think Canaanite myth has penetrated the Bible, treat the expression bekOr mawet in one of three ways. I) The phrase 'first-born of death' is an idiom for deadly disease. ...”
Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and and Pieter W. van der Horst, eds., Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, 2nd extensively rev. ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 332–333.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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KTU 1.5 I:7 and Job 18:13

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