Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
Ver. 46. Where their worm dieth not] i.e. Where there is eternity of extremity. Of all outward torments none more insufferable than that by fire; as of all inward, none like that of having worms ever grubbing and gnawing upon the entrails. Add hereunto, that worms and fire use to make an end of other things; not so here. The fire fails not, as did that fire in the valley of Hinnom, wherein the dead carcases were burnt without Jerusalem, Jeremiah 19:6; The worm dies not, as do those worms that swarm in sepulchres. Oh, the terrors and torments, the fathomless perdition, the remediless misery into which the damned are plunged, without the least hope of ever either mending or ending! Plato travelling into Egypt together with Euripides the tragedian, got much Hebrew learning; he calleth hell πυριφλεγεθων, a fiery lake, and saith that there their worm dieth not, their fire is not quenched. (Phaed. p. 400.) This he might have from Isaiah 66:24, though it be his practice, lacte gypsum miscere, as Irenaeus spake, to stain the pure streams of divine truths with fabulous narrations.