Hebrew Word Study–Worm–Tola

Isaiah 41:14 Fear not, thou worm Jacob, [and] ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the LORD, and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.

Isaiah 66:24: “And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.”

Mark 9:48: “Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.”

There are a couple of unusual things about this passage in Isaiah 41:14. One that really stands out is that God refers to Israel two times.  The first reference is to Jacob, and the second to Israel. Why does God use two different names for His people?   The other thing is that God calls Jacob a worm.  That is pretty insulting on God’s behalf.  The worm has traditionally been a symbol of insignificance.  It just doesn’t make sense to say, “Fear not, you insignificant Jacob.”  Jacob and Israel were anything but insignificant to God.

I was reading in the Talmud in Berachot 13a where the sages teach that Jacob means supplanter and deceitful and Israel means Prince of God.  When the people are in a rebellious state, or they are focused on the things of this natural world, God refers to His people as Jacob, and when the people are in obedience to God and following Him, He refers to His people as Israel.  Here in Isaiah 41:14, God is referring to both.  He is speaking not only to those in obedience to Him but also to those who are living in disobedience.   He does, however, refer to Israel, the ones in obedience to Him as men, and Jacob, the ones in disobedience to Him, as worms.

The word for worm is tola which means scarlet or crimson and a worm. Most earthworms tend to have a reddish color.  Strongs suggests that this is the coccus ilicis which is a worm that attaches itself to a branch of a tree when it is ready to give birth. It dies as it lays its eggs but her body covers the eggs until the eggs hatch. As it dies, it leaves a red stain on the branch of the tree, and Strongs likens this to the death of Jesus on the cross or tree shedding his blood on the tree. That is cute, a nice illustration, but I think there is more, and it is hard to see the significance of that to the verses that speak of the fires of hell. Also, the word tola can refer to many different species of worms.  Some Christian commentators relate it to a worm that feeds on dead bodies, and there will be so many dead bodies that the worm will be so well-fed that it will never die. Again, the word tola does refer to many species of worms, from maggots to caterpillars to earthworms. The use of the word for red would eliminate most caterpillars and maggots, however.

Still, it is hard to believe that God would stoop to insulting his disobedient children by calling them worms. That just seems so harsh and disgusting.  Perhaps this is not an insult but a description.  Its Semitic origins, the word for worm, tola lies with the Phoenicians, who were merchants and seafaring people.  They were also into forestry.  Solomon purchased the cedar wood for the temple from the Phoenicians.  It was known in the Mediterranean area as Cedrus liabani, which was exploited for use in building structures and ships. That is, its use was valuable so long as the LT, as it is read in the Phoenician language (tola’s – worms), did not bore holes into them.  You can’t exactly build a ship with wood that is full of wormholes. 

What the sages noted was that these little innocent creatures could wreak havoc on the shipping and building industry.  They did it with their mouths. Their mouths were very soft and tender, yet they could bore through solid wood.   To call someone a worm would be to say that they use their mouths to be very destructive.  Yet, the idea of a wood-boring worm carries the idea of a creature that has an insatiable appetite and/or desires. 

Within the context of Isaiah 41:4, it would appear that the sages teach that God is saying that He is going to protect and deliver these disobedient people who use their mouths to pray.  Oddly, God is not saying these people are praying from their hearts, but from their mouths, and yet God will hear their prayers anyway.

This idea of an insatiable appetite would also apply to Isaiah 66:24 and Mark 9:48 as a reference to the afterlife and those who do not accept God’s gift of redemption. They will go to a place where their desires for the material world will never be satisfied. Material possessions, food, and drink will have no use in the afterlife as one will be just a spirit and not a physical creature with a fleshly body. Yet, the desire for food, drink, sexual relationships, drugs, alcohol, and other desires of the flesh will still be present, and one will burn with these desires, but they will never be satisfied; these desires will never die. That is not to say hell is not a place of fire and brimstone, but the torment of fleshly desires that are never satisfied can be just as much torture as fire and brimstone.  There is the story of the rich man and Lazarus, where the rich man finds himself in Hell and cries out to Abraham in Luke 16:24: “Father Abraham have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.”  Could there be a double meaning to the word flame? A flame is shalah in Hebrew and differs from a fire ‘ash in Hebrew in the sense that the flame is the glowing gaseous part of the fire, that is, the fuel that the fire is consuming. A candle burns when the heat of the fire melts the wax turning it into a gas. The fire of the candle is not the wick that burns but the gas that is produced that is burning or being consumed by the fire.  Hence the flame is not the fire but the glow of the fire. Perhaps a secondary meaning of fire among the Hebrews is as a metaphor for desires or passions, and the flame is the hunger or appetite (fuel) that is consumed by these passions or desires. Not only is there the torment of the flames, but there is also the worm, the fuel that feeds on those desires, hunger, addictions, and other lusts of the flesh that will never die. The rich man spent his life satisfying or feeding his fleshly desires ignoring anything that would feed his spirit, whereas Lazarus spent his life feeding on the things of God.  

The worm that never dies is the lust of the flesh that will last for eternity in hell, and for an eternity, one will desire the hungers or appetites of the flesh, but they will never be satisfied. Even a touch of a drop of water will not be available to satisfy that burning thirst.  For water can only satisfy the physical burning thirst but not the spiritual thirst.

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