http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=11&article=29
Questions and Answers: "Their Worm does not Die"
Q.
What does “their worm does not die” mean in Mark 9?
A.
At the end of the chapter in Mark 9, Jesus began a brief discourse with
His disciples, explaining that their spiritual well-being should be the
paramount concern in their lives. In order to illustrate this point, He
commented that if their hand offended them, it should be cut off, or if
their foot made them sin, it, too, should be amputated. This figurative
language stressed the point that whatever stood in the way of
faithfulness to God should be discarded. Jesus concluded that it was
better to be rid of stumbling blocks than “to go to hell, into the fire
that shall never be quenched—where ‘their worm does not die and the fire
is not quenched’ ” (Mark 9:43-44,46,48).
The word “hell” in this passage is actually the Greek word
Gehenna,
meaning “Valley of the Son(s) of Hinnom,” which was the name given to
the valley south of the walls of Jerusalem. This valley was notoriously
connected to the sinful, horrific practice of child sacrifice associated
with the pagan god Molech. Josiah, the righteous king of Judah, in his
efforts to restore true worship, ransacked the pagan worship arena and
“defiled Topheth, which is the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, that no man
might make his son or his daughter pass through the fire to Molech” (2
Kings 23:10). As a result, the valley became a refuse dump for
discarding filth, dead animals, and other garbage (see Jeremiah 7:32).
By the time of Jesus, the Jewish community associated
Gehenna with spiritual death (Lenski, 1946, p. 407).
Interjected into Jesus’ explicit description of
Gehenna, was the
statement that in this horrid place, the “worm does not die.” The
worms—described in Isaiah (66:24), and pictured by Jesus in Mark 9—are
maggots, which would be associated quite naturally with the rotting
filth of a refuse heap. The twist to Jesus’ phrase is the fact that the
worm in hell “does not die.” Concerning this, Lenski wrote: “The fact
that it does not die means that its work is eternal. ...The bodies of
the blessed shall shine with glory and eternal bliss, but the bodies of
the damned shall be like rotting, putrid corpses that have the worm
within...” (p. 408).
This passage surely must represent one of the most graphic mental
pictures ever painted by our Lord—which should cause each of us to
reflect seriously on the possible stumbling blocks in our own lives, and
what we can do on a daily basis in order to avoid them.
REFERENCE
Lenski, R.C.H. (1961),
The Interpretation of Mark’s Gospel (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg).
