Worm
(1.) Heb. sas (Isa 51:8), denotes the caterpillar of the clothes-moth.
(2.) The manna bred worms (tola’im), but on the Sabbath there was not any worm (rimmah) therein (Ex 16:20, Ex 16:24). Here these words refer to caterpillars or larvae, which feed on corrupting matter.
These two Hebrew words appear to be interchangeable (Job 25:6; Isa 14:11). Tola’im in some places denotes the caterpillar (Deut 28:39; Jonah 4:7), and rimmah, the larvae, as bred from putridity (Job 17:14; Job 21:26; Job 24:20). In Mic 7:17, where it is said, “They shall move out of their holes like worms,” perhaps serpents or “creeping things,” or as in the Revised Version, “crawling things,” are meant.
The word is used figuratively in Job 25:6; Ps 22:6; Isa 41:14; Mark 9:44, Mark 9:46, Mark 9:48; Isa 66:24.
From Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897), by Matthew George Easton.
