Job 18:13

13. Strength Hebrew, Baddim. The same word is used twice in this verse, and means parts or members. Skin stands here for body, as in Exodus 22:27. The discourse now becomes personal, for the disease Job had eats its way as Bildad describes. AEschylus speaks of “leprosies that assail the flesh with fierce fangs, and entirely eat away its original nature.” Choephori, 279. Firstborn of death Whatever is pre-eminent in its kind is called in the Scriptures “the firstborn.” If the Arab deems “fevers to be the daughters of death,” the terrible elephantiasis may well be called his firstborn. Death has his family, and at the head of the dismal brood stands, in the Semitic mind, this most dreaded disease.