3903 — Their Worm Shall Not Die
By W. S. H.
Do Isa. 66:24; Mark 9:44, 46, 48; and Rev. 14:11, mean that the wicked are to be tormented forever and ever? What are we to understand by "their worm shall not die"? Isa. 34:10 reads, "The smoke thereof shall go up forever." Does the Bible in any other place give a clearer interpretation? W. S. H. The word rendered "hell" in the last part of Mark 9 is "Gehenna," and the Greek word "Gehenna" comes from the Hebrew words "the Valley of Hinnom." All authorities agree as regards this. The Valley of Hinnom was a valley just outside of Jerusalem, where was thrown the offal of the city, the dead bodies of malefactors, and other refuse. Upon these dead bodies and filth of the city, worms preyed. They were there constantly, to devour utterly all that was cast there; and what the worms could not devour, constant fires were kept burning to destroy, in order to avert pestilence. And thus "the Valley of Hinnom" became a synonymous term with "utter destruction." One can see how this is. All this refuse from the city was cast there to be destroyed, the constant worm preying upon it to destroy it, and the constant fires kept burning to devour it, or consume it. And that is the figure which our Lord uses to show the destruction of the incorrigibly wicked; they will be cast into Gehenna, where the worm shall not die, and the fire shall not be quenched, until it has done its work; and hence we read of the wicked in the Thirty-seventh Psalm, "Evil-doers shall be cut off." Verse 9. "They that are cursed of Him shall be cut off." Verse 22. "The enemies of Jehovah shall be as the fat of lambs: they shall consume; in smoke shall they consume away." Verse 20. We read in Mal. 4:1, "For, behold, the day cometh, it burneth as a furnace; and all the proud, and all that work wickedness, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith Jehovah of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch." And of Satan, under the figure of the king of Tyre, it is said, speaking of his destruction: "Therefore have I brought forth a fire from the midst of thee; it hath devoured thee, and I have turned thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. . . . Thou art become a terror, and thou shalt nevermore have any being." In Matthew, the third chapter, in the words of John the Baptist concerning Christ, "whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroly cleanse His threshing-floor; and He will gather His wheat into the garner, but the chaff He will burn up with unquenchable fire." That is, that fire will not be quenched until it has consumed the chaff. As a comment upon this, turn to Jeremiah, the seventeenth chapter, the twenty-seventh verse, in which we read of God's judgment upon Jerusalem, if they would not observe His Sabbath, "Then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched." Jerusalem was to be burned up with unquenchable fire. Read in 2 Chron. 36: 19-21 as to just what this unquenchable fire did: "And they burnt the house of God, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof. . . . to fulfil the word of Jehovah by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its sabbaths." This shows that the unquenchable fire simply means an instrument of destruction that would do its work of destroying. We have the same thought concerning the worm that should not die. For a comment upon this, turn to Isaiah, the fifty-first chapter, seventh and eighth verses: "Fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye dismayed at their revilings. For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool; but My righteousness shall be forever, and My salvation unto all generations." Note again that the worm destroys, and this is the very figure of the sixty-sixth chapter and the twenty-fourth verse, for observe that it is not upon the living that the worm preys, but it is upon the dead. Thus the Revised Version reads, "And they shall go forth, and look upon the dead bodies 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." That is, they shall be utterly destroyed, and as Mark puts it, turned into ashes on the face of the earth. The expression "torment . . . forever and ever," in Rev. 14:11, is a wrong use of the meaning of the Greek term "basanismos," the primary meaning of which is "testing;" so God's children shall be tested forever and ever. They will be tested by fire, for "the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is." 1 Cor. 3:13. That fire will be kindled by the presence of God, for "our God is a consuming fire." Heb. 12:29. When God shall be revealed with all His overpowering presence of burning glory, His own children will be changed from mortality to immortality. They will simply take upon themselves new glory, for God's glory only consumes sin; but that burning glory will set on fire the very foundations of the earth, when the wicked are judged, and sin and all that is identified with sin will be destroyed, and the last testing will take place, and the smoke of that testing will go up forever. That was the thought of the burnt offering. The burnt offering stood for the consecration of the man who offered it. In that was represented all of himself, all his sin was confessed. That burnt offering represented himself, and the smoke went up forever. That is not that it was constantly and forever ascending, but that the fire had consumed, and the smoke was gone forever. It was a finality. And so the tormenting, or testing, forever and ever is a final testing. "The wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment"—not punish-ing, but a punishment which shall be final. See the "Bible Students' Library," No. 111, "Tormented Forever and Ever," the price of which by mail is two cents.