Worm

Worm in the Bible translates several Hebrew terms covering different creatures and carrying different connotations. The sas (Isaiah 51:8) is the clothes-moth caterpillar that destroys garments. The rimmah (Exodus 16:20, 24; Job 25:6) is the maggot or putrefying worm, a symbol of decay and death — the manna that was kept overnight bred worms and stank (Exodus 16:20), and Job uses the worm as the ultimate image of human insignificance and mortality (Job 25:6). The Psalmist's famous self-description in Psalm 22:6, "I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people," combines the worm's associations of lowliness and vulnerability with the context of extreme suffering and public shame — language the New Testament understands as prophetic of Christ on the cross. In the teaching of Jesus, Gehenna is described as a place where "their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:44–48, citing Isaiah 66:24), using the image of worms feeding on the perpetually burning refuse of the city as an image of unending divine judgment.