“And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases 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.” – Isaiah 66:24
Well now, that is a weird way of ending the book of Isaiah, is it not? One would have thought God would have inspired Isaiah to complete his book of prophecy with the preceding verse:
“And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord.” – Isaiah 66:23
But, instead, God completes his chapter with this rather curious verse. We should really take a better look at Isaiah 66:24 and try to ascertain what this prophetic verse is conveying to the student of the Word.
Isaiah 66:24 – Corpses and The Worm that Never Dies
“And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases 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.” – Isaiah 66:24
Contextually, this verse describes people in their flesh and blood bodies living in the Messianic Millennial Kingdom who would go forth and “look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against [the Lord]”; and, notably, there are no other timeframes that would be acceptable for this prophecy to be realized.
There will evidently be a perpetual piece of ground – a visible graveyard if you will – where some of the corpses Christ defeated at His Second Coming will be left for a memorial to those who are born into the Millennial Kingdom. It is also barely possible that those in their flesh and blood bodies who die in the Messianic Millennial Kingdom will also be buried in this plot of land, though death in the Messianic Millennial Kingdom because of outright sin and rebellion appears to be a rather rare occurrence within this future dispensation.
The Hebrew for “their worm” in Isaiah 66:24 is תוֹלַעְתָּ “ṯôlaʿtām” from 8438 תּוֹלָע “tôlāʿ” which simply means worm, maggot.
The prophetic implications in Isaiah 66:24 indicate that this metaphoric worm, representing a worm or maggot that feeds on a rotting corpse or carcass in the physical world, has symbolic connotations and connections related to the enemies of God and the horrific circumstances of their spirit/soul complexes that will reside in hell in Sheol immediately following their physical deaths at the hands of the Lord when He returns, with their future destiny of divine judgment at The Great White Throne Judgment in eternally resurrected bodies that will be tormented by spiritual fires within The Lake of Fire forevermore (Revelation 20:11-15).
Why do I say “spiritual fires”? Simply because physical fires can never have any power over an eternally resurrected body (such as the glorious eternally resurrected bodies the church will receive in the resurrection/rapture of the bride of Christ), including the eternally resurrected spiritual/physical bodies of the unsaved that occur in conjunction with the passing away of the old Earth and old heavens. Moreover, no material agent known to man in this fallen universe can ever have dominion over resurrected eternal bodies, as Jesus Himself demonstrated (e.g., John 20:26) and as logic clearly dictates.
However, spiritual fires as found in hell and later in The Lake of Fire that was prepared for the Devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41) – in whatever spiritual essence those spiritual fires may be, and whose comparison can only be likened to that of the brutality of physical fires – will indeed have divinely granted dominion over the eternally resurrected bodies of the unsaved, but not for Consumption, Conditional Immortality, or Annihilationism that some have suggested.
[For more on this important subject, please see The Lake of Fire and Salvation.]
“[T]heir worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched” expresses the truth that all human beings were created eternal, and that the unsaved will be resurrected, just as the saved will be, when their eternal spirit/soul complexes that had resided in the spiritual fires of Torments (or hell) in Sheol awaiting Judgment Day will be reunited with their resurrected eternal bodies.
Of course, this truth of Judgment Day for the unsaved dead – the details of which we know very well today because of the Brit Chadashah (New Testament) – was alluded to in the Tanakh (Old Testament) in a few rare passages such as…
“And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” – Daniel 12:2
… but the details of this resurrection and judgment of the unsaved dead eluded those who studied the Tanakh in Biblical days before the First Advent of Messiah Yeshua and the subsequent writings of the Apostles that compose our New Testament Scriptures.
In summary of our text, God, through Isaiah, reveals that people who are born into the Messianic Millennial Kingdom in flesh and blood bodies “shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched.”
We will propose the likelihood of where this perpetual visible graveyard will be located momentarily.
Sheol, Gehenna, Hell/Hades, and The Lake of Fire
Briefly, for a little more clarity, here are the Hebrew and Greek words associated with Sheol, Gehenna, Hell/Hades, and The Lake of Fire.
The Hebrew word 7585 שְׁאוֹל “šᵊ’ôl” or “Sheol” – usually translated Sheol, hell, grave, pit – primarily refers to the compartment in Sheol (believed to reside in the center of Earth) where the spirit/soul complex of the unsaved dead reside as they await The Great White Throne Judgment.
The comparative word for Hebrew’s Sheol in the Greek is 1067 γέεννα “geenna” or “Gehenna” and is usually translated hell or hades, referring to the same place where the spirit/soul complexes of the unsaved dead await The Great White Throne Judgment, with an allusion to their eternal fate in “The Lake of Fire” that follows The Great White Throne Judgment.
[For more on Sheol, and what Sheol looked like prior to the cross of Christ, please see Instantly Changed and Caught Up.]
The Greek for “The Lake of Fire” is λίμνην τοῦ πυρός (3041 “limnēn” – “Lake”) (3588 “tou” – “the”) (4442 “pyros” – from “pyr” – “of Fire”), meaning exactly as translated.
Mark 9:43-48 – Messiah Yeshua and Their Worm That Never Dies
Messiah Yeshua utilized the same metaphor and vocabulary of “their worm shall die not” from Isaiah 66:24, as “their worm dieth not” in Mark chapter 9, in referring to “hell” and/or eternal judgment in The Lake of Fire.
“And if thy hand offend [makes you sin] thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
“And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
“And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.” – Mark 9:43-48
The Greek for “worm” in Mark 9 is 4663 σκώληξ “skōlēx” which also means a worm, maggot, specifically one that preys upon dead bodies.
Our Lord’s teaching in Mark 9:43-48 uses imagery of a person destroying their human flesh when one sins in this life – that is, for each member of a person’s body that commits the sin – and the hell fires that awaits the unregenerate soul. The comparative symbolism is quite graphic and extreme, to say the least.
The unregenerate in Sheol/hell/hades, and later The Lake of Fire, will no doubt have a perpetual guilty conscience for what they outrightly refused in their life on Earth; a nagging gnawing in their mind and soul of what could have been had they unreservedly received Christ’s free and endless love-gift, symbolized by a physical worm or maggot that eats away at a rotting corpse, and illustrated by our Lord’s application of Isaiah 66:24 as “their [own] worm [that] dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.”
Henry Morris, in the Henry Morris Study Bible, addresses this passage with the following notation:
Jesus spoke often warning of hell, with this entire passage (Mk 9:42-50) being a prime example. The undying worm indicates never ending disintegration and the unquenchable fire indicates eternal suffering, however they may be implemented. The contemplation of such a future ought to drive men to “flee from the wrath to come” (Ma 3:7), but instead it often impels them to even more adamant unbelief. Nevertheless, like it or not, it was their very Creator who was here issuing the warning.
Messiah essentially builds upon Isaiah 66:24 with “their worm dieth not” for the unsaved as metaphoric for both the eternal spirit/soul complex and the physical body that is eaten by worms/maggots at death. The natural physical bodies of the unsaved, just like the saved, will decompose in one way or another or be cremated – hence the literal symbolism of the worm that feeds on a corpse – and will eventually be resurrected and united with the unsaved dead’s spirit/soul complex that will have resided in Torments in Sheol since their deaths (Ezekiel 32:18-32, Luke 16:19-31, et al.) in preparation for The Great White Throne Judgment.
“Hell [Sheol] from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.
“All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us?
“Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee.” – Isaiah 14:9-11 [For more on this passage and its prophetic implications, please see Isaiah 14:9-18 – Prophecy of Sheol.]
“And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
“And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
“And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
“And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.” – Revelation 20:11-15
The eternal fate of all unbelievers that first begins in hell in Sheol following their physical deaths gives rise to the symbolism of Messiah’s words that “their worm dieth not,” and will conclude with their eternal torment, suffering, and regret within The Lake of Fire where “the fire is not quenched.”
The Probable Location of the Perpetually Sustained Corpses of Isaiah 66:24
Here again is our study verse, along with its preceding verse for proper context.
“And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord. And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases 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.” – Isaiah 66:23-24
When considering Isaiah 66:24 and its link in verse 23 to “all flesh coming to worship before [the Lord]” in Jerusalem during the Messianic Millennial Kingdom, a verse within a passage in Ezekiel 47 that speaks of the Messianic Millennial Kingdom and the river of living waters that emanate from the Millennial Temple came to my mind, and I do believe there is a solid connection between Isaiah 66:23-24 and Ezekiel 47:11.
“Afterward he brought me again unto the door of the house [Millennial Temple]; and, behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward: for the forefront of the house stood toward the east, and the waters came down from under from the right side of the house, at the south side of the altar.
“Then brought he me out of the way of the gate northward, and led me about the way without unto the utter gate by the way that looketh eastward; and, behold, there ran out waters on the right side…
“Then said he unto me, These waters issue out toward the east country, and go down into the desert, and go into the sea [Dead Sea/Salt Sea]: which being brought forth into the sea, the waters shall be healed. And it shall come to pass, that every thing that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither: for they shall be healed; and every thing shall live whither the river cometh.… But the miry places [swamps] thereof and the marishes [marshes] thereof shall not be healed; they shall be given to salt.” – Ezekiel 47:1-2, 8-9, 11
Taking Isaiah 66:23-24 and Ezekiel 47:11 together, the most likely area where these corpses will be spiritually and naturally preserved will be in a location southeast of Jerusalem below the Dead Sea/Salt Sea — a famous attraction in Israel that will come alive after Messiah’s Second Coming from the regeneration and the life-giving waters that will come out from the Millennial Temple. This is the same area where many of the armies loyal to Antichrist will be gathered from Jerusalem, wrapping around the southern edge of the Dead Sea/Salt Sea, all the way down to Bozrah in modern-day southern Jordan.
These swamps and marshes from the river out of the temple, that God through Ezekiel speaks of – “… miry places thereof and the marishes” that “shall not be healed” but “given to salt” – appear to be directly located in this vicinity below the Dead Sea/Salt Sea and may very well help to explain a natural preservation of these corpses, in addition to the supernatural perpetuation, with all the salt and minerals that are native to this region.
Circumstantially, this same locality is believed to be the general area near to where the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. Perhaps, this may be the exact location – within the miry places and the marshes that are given to salt that may very well rest upon the ancient ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah – where these spiritually and naturally preserved corpses will be observed during the Messianic Millennial Kingdom.
This haunting locale, according to Isaiah 66:24, will be an observable graveyard of visibly preserved carcasses upon the ground – whose corpses are those that followed and worshiped the Antichrist, taking his Mark of The Beast, and were gathered together for battle against the returning King (Revelation 19:19) Who utterly destroyed them with His Word, the sword of His mouth (2 Thessalonians 2:8 and Revelation 19:15, 21) – and will be visited by those born into the Millennial Kingdom as a stark testimony of the literal and symbolic conclusion of those who would rebel against their loving Creator, Lord, Savior, Redeemer, and King.
The conceivable connections to the Second Coming of Messiah and His deadly assault on His and Israel’s enemies in Revelation 19:11-21, the perpetual corpses in Isaiah 66:24, the Dead Sea/Salt Sea region, the miry places and the marshes that are given to salt in Ezekiel 47:11, and the destruction of the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah as given to us in Genesis 19:1-29 (with Lot’s wife turning into a pillar of salt in Genesis 19:26), are certainly profound!
Sadly, and heartbreakingly, most of those born into the Messianic Millennial Kingdom in their flesh and blood bodies that are inherently born into the sin-nature of all fallen humanity will not learn the important lessons of the spiritually and naturally perpetually sustained corpses.
“And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
“And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.” – Revelation 20:7-9
What may possibly transpire for those in their flesh and blood bodies who did not rebel following the Messianic Millennial Kingdom and Satan’s release from prison to deceive the world is our foremost topic in The Mystery of the Last Sheep.
The Scarlet Tola Worm and Christ’s Sacrifice on the Tree
When speaking of worms in Isaiah 66:24 – Corpses and The Worm That Never Dies, we must briefly articulate the life and actions of the Scarlet Tola Worm (a.k.a., the Crimson Worm) and its symbolic testimony to our precious Lord and Savior and the loving sacrifice He accomplished for mankind upon the cross.
We observe this connection to the Scarlet Tola Worm in the Messianic Psalm, Psalm 22:
“But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.” – Psalm 22:6
Since so many others have documented this subject well, we will offer a portion from a short article at Lighthouse Trails Research Project (a very important discernment ministry that I highly recommend to my brothers and sisters) entitled Psalm 22: The Tola Worm:
Psalm 22 is known as the Psalm of the crucifixion, written nearly 1,000 years before Jesus cries, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” David prophesies of the Crucified One’s words in vs. 6: “But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.” The word worm is not just describing any worm. Here it is tola, an insect that was crushed to get the die color of red/scarlet and used to color the robes of royalty…
The dye was highly valued (Lamentations 4:5) as it was used to color the cloth in the tabernacle. Scarlet was woven into the fine linen of the screen for the doorway (Exodus 26:36); there was one way into the Tabernacle. This picture was fulfilled by Jesus’ words, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6).
Creationist Henry Morris gives further insight:
“When the female of the scarlet worm species was ready to give birth to her young, she would attach her body to the trunk of a tree, fixing herself so firmly and permanently that she would never leave again. The eggs deposited beneath her body were thus protected until the larvae were hatched and able to enter their own life cycle. As the mother died, the crimson fluid stained her body and the surrounding wood. From the dead bodies of such female scarlet worms, the commercial scarlet dyes of antiquity were extracted. (Biblical Basis for Modern Science, p.73 1985, Morris)”…
This insect [the Scarlet Tola Worm] attaches itself to the tree (as Christ did for us). Peter’s favorite saying was Christ was crucified on the tree. Jesus, at His crucifixion, invoking the image of a worm, is not meant to convey his human status, but rather the color of blood. He is describing the red-stained tree of His Crucifixion. The same word is sometimes translated as “scarlet” or “crimson.”
In order to produce the dye for these robes [of royalty] the worm had to be crushed. After the worm was crushed, it was no longer recognizable. Christ was crushed for our sin.
He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. (Isaiah 53:5)
For the full article, please see Psalm 22: The Tola Worm – From the Lighthouse.
I thought this would be a fitting end to our study: From the perpetual corpses lying upon a piece of ground during the Messianic Millennial Kingdom as a memorial of those who would rebel against the Lord; to the warnings of The Worm That Never Dies that symbolizes and graphically illustrates the eternal suffering and regret of the unsaved from the face and presence of Creator God going into the Eternal Kingdom; to the life and sacrificial death of the female Scarlet Tola Worm – a profound natural feature and function that embodies our Lord who willingly sacrificed Himself on the cross, shedding His precious blood, paying the just punishment for every man and woman, and dying on the cross for the sins of all mankind – we come to the conclusion of our study of Isaiah 66:24 – Carcasses and The Worm that Never Dies.
Messiah Yeshua did it all on the cross for every human being He ever created, extending to each person His endless love through His free-gift offer of salvation. Only one must receive His free and endless love-gift offer by truly believing in Who He is and all that He has done for them, and His death, burial, and resurrection, to be saved by His mighty substitutionary work on the cross for them.
Herein lies another of God’s great gifts to humankind – that of freewill. For who would desire someone to love them, who are forced to love them, for that is no love at all.
“We love him, because he first loved us.” – 1 John 4:19
“Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us…” – 1 John 3:16a
“Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
“For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.” – 1 Timothy 2:4-6
“… the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” – Galatians 2:20b
May we all keep Answering the Call of The Great Commission, and giving an answer to every man and woman who so desperately needs Jesus and asks us, “Why Am I Here and What Is It All About?”
Love, grace, mercy, and shalom in Messiah Yeshua, and Maranatha!
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