Question:
Will you give me some light on the worm that does not die, as mentioned in Isaiah 66:24 and Mark 9:48?
Answer:
The term “hell” in Mark 9:43-48 comes from the Greek word Gehenna and that from the Hebrew Valley of Hinnom, south of Jerusalem, also called Tophet or Topheth. (See Jeremiah 19:2, 6, 11, 12). This valley, says Bagster’s Greek Lexicon, was “once celebrated for the horrid worship of Molech, and afterwards polluted with every species of filth, as well as the carcasses of animals, and dead bodies of malefactors, to consume which, in order to avert the pestilence which such a mass of corruption would occasion, constant fires were kept burning.” Notice that Isaiah 66:24 speaks not of live men upon whom worms feed, but the carcasses, or dead bodies of men. See Isaiah 37:36, where the Hebrew word is rendered “corpses;” and Jeremiah 31:40; Amos 8:3, and other places where it is translated “dead bodies,” which is what the word everywhere means. The terms “undying” and “neither . . . be quenched” simply indicate that these agents of destruction will not cease until they do their appointed work; for the worm shall eat them up (Isaiah 50:9; 51:8), and the fire shall burn up the chaff (Matthew 3:12; Malachi 4:1; Revelation 18:8). For an instance of this use of “unquenchable fire” see Jeremiah 17:24-27 and 2 Chronicles 36:19, 21. The former text declares that if the Jews did not observe the Sabbath, the Lord would kindle a fire in the gates of Jerusalem which would not be quenched. In the latter, it states that this fire “burnt the house of God,” and “burnt all the palaces thereof with fire,” “to fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah.” The “undying worm” and the “unquenchable fire” are symbols of utter and complete destruction. These arguments will likewise apply to Mark 9:43-48. Gehenna, as Wilson remarks, “symbolizes death and utter destruction, but in no place signifies a place of eternal torment.”
