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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comFausset Bible Dictionary: Worm
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Not the earth worm (Lumbricus terrestris). ; "the moth ('ash) shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm (sas) shall eat them like wool." The sas is a species of (See MOTH . Rimmah synonymous with toleah; applied to the worm bred in the manna when kept more than a day (), tolaim, answering to rimmah (); so in ; maggots and larvae of insects which feed on putrefying matter (; ; ; ); maggots were bred in Job's sores produced by elephantiasis. "Herod was eaten of worms" (). Josephus tells the same of Herod the Great (), and of Antiochus Epiphanes.
In ; Hebrew "though after my skin (is destroyed) this (body) is destroyed," Job omits "body" because it was so wasted as not to deserve the name. The tolath was to eat the grapes of apostate Israel (); also Jonah's gourd (). Hell is associated with the "worm that dieth not," an image from maggots preying on putrid carcass (). (See HELL.) ; ; , "THEIR worm" is the gnawing self reproach of conscience, ever continuing and unavailing remorse. The Lord Jesus represents here both the worm and those on whom it preys as never dying. Symbolizing at once decay and loathsome humiliation, and this everlasting.