“... 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. ...”