“They will go out, and look at the dead bodies of the men who have transgressed against me; for their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.”
Certain worms are immortal — they never die.
Zoology
38
passages in this field
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The cited passage
What current science says
No multicellular organism is truly immortal. The longest-lived worms we know of are certain deep-sea tube worms (Escarpia laminata) that can live over 300 years — impressive, but definitely not forever. Most worms that feed on decomposing matter (like maggots, which are fly larvae) live days to weeks. The closest thing to a 'biologically immortal' organism is the jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii, which can revert to its juvenile stage — but it's not a worm and it can still die from disease or predation. Biological immortality for worms is fiction; they decompose just like everything they feed on.
What the text says
This comes from Isaiah 66:24. 'Their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched' — the text describes eternally living worms feeding on corpses in an unquenchable fire.
Three honest ways to read this passage
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As history
The text records how its authors understood the world with the knowledge they had. Read this way, a difference from modern science is a window into the ancient mind, not a failure.
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As accommodation
The text speaks to its first audience in their own terms, to make a point that isn't mainly about physics or biology. Read this way, the scientific detail is the vehicle, not the cargo.
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As contradiction
The text makes a claim about the physical world that modern findings dispute. Read this way, the difference is a genuine factual disagreement worth naming.
GEBible doesn't pick one of these for you. Each entry shows the passage, what it says, and what current science says — nothing more.