ANNIHILATIONISM: OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES

Isaiah 66:24

Bowles: This proof text used to prove eternal hell (and quoted by Jesus in Mark 9:43-48) does just the opposite since it clearly says that the people are dead already. Worm and fire consume dead bodies rather than torment live ones.

My response: The literary structure of “Third Isaiah” shows three major sections, each ending in a parallel statement regarding God's enemies: “There is no peace, says the Lord, for the wicked” in 48:22 and 57:21, and “their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched.” in 66:24.

Payne: “If question should be raised about Isaiah's language, 'How can there be the endless prey of worms and fire without disappearing from the sight of men?,' Delitzsch replies: The prophet precludes the possibility of our conceiving of the thing here set forth as realized in this present state. He is speaking of the future state, but in figures drawn from the present world: the eternal torment of the damned.”

Whybray, Isaiah: “This is probably an early description of eternal punishment: through dead, the rebels will continue to suffer for ever...double image of ever-burning fires and continuous decomposition.”

New International Dictionary of NT Theology (DNNT), “fire”: Those condemned in the judgment will be continuously tormented with fire.”

Herbert Wolf, Interpreting Isaiah: “The fires of judgment are never quenched and there seems to be no end to suffering...those who refuse to trust in the Lord and his Word 'will lie down in torment.'” “'rest' means repose, relaxation, cease or die.”

Oswalt, Isaiah: “As the worship of the righteous is perpetual (v. 23) so is the punishment of the rebellious.”

DOTTE, “worm”: “'Their worm does not die' can hardly refer to a continual supply of apostate corpses outside of Jerusalem. While the phrase may communicate the notion of total destruction, it more likely connotes eternal suffering. Apocalyptic literature certainly understood it so.”

DOTTE, “burn”: “The abuse of the corpse may have been a deliberate attempt to make a final end of the person or (as in Is. 66:24) to cause suffering for the spirit of the victim.”

Actually, there is only one reference in the OT or NT to to worm's simply consuming dead bodies. Twice worms are mentioned as eating on a living vine; once by Job (7:5) to describe his present physical sufferings; twice by Job (14:11; 24:20-21) to the survival of dead in Sheol but in a “weakened state”-NRSV note; Job 17:14 lists “worm” in parallel to the Pit; in Acts 12:23 Herod is punished by worms eating him before he dies in torment (also in Josephus). In the structure of Acts, this event is parallel to the agony and death of Judas with bowel problems (“worms” according to Papias). Also, 2 Maccabees 9 describes how Antiochus IV was eaten by worms and then died.

Mark 9:43-48 Beale and Carson (Commentary on the NT Use of the OT) state that this passage is a reference to Isaiah 66:24. Gehenna is the place of unquenchable fire set in opposition to the kingdom of God. Being there is a fate worse than death.

Hoekema: worm symbolizes inner anguish and torment, fire symbolizes outer suffering. “If the figures used in this passage do not mean unending suffering, they mean nothing at all.”

Bible Knowledge Commentary: “In Jewish thought the imagery of fire and worms vividly portrayed the place of future eternal punishment for the wicked (see Judith 16:17: “He will give their flesh to fire and worms” [note in RSV, “As in Dan. 12:2, the punishment of the wicked is eternal.”]; they shall weep in pain for ever” and Ecclesiasticus 7:17-”Humble yourself greatly for the punishment of the ungodly is fire and worms.”)

Note the incompatibility of understanding worm and fire literally. If the fire consumes then there is nothing for the worm to eat.

International Bible Commentary (F.F.Bruce, ed.): Gehenna “came to denote the place of future torment for the wicked.”

New Bible Commentary: Gehenna “was a natural metaphor for the place of future punishment.”

William Lane, NICOT: “a vivid picture of a destruction which continues endlessly” “Life” = communion with God. “Jesus embraces the accepted notions of his time...but the severity of the judgment of Jesus must not be eroded or explained away.” Lane recommends C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce as the “finest contribution in the English language to the whole debate on the punishment of hell.” Mark 9:48 is “a picture of never ending decay and futility.”

Hugh Anderson, NCBC: “We should not read into these sayings later speculations about the eternal punishment of the wicked in hell...not a developed doctrine of eternal punishment.”

Daniel 12:2 “Many” may refer to “all” (a Semitism meaning “not just one” – Anchor Bible Commentary), all but those in limbo, those who have died during the Tribulation or the persecution of Antiochus IV, the Essenes applied it to themselves, the clearly good and clearly bad only, the faithful and the unpunished wicked only, the Jewish martyrs and the wicked only, or only the Jewish dead.

NRSV notes that this is “the first clear biblical reference to a resurrection, final judgment and afterlife.”

Lindenberger, Interpretation magazine: “the others will be raised to a worse state than the neutral oblivion of Sheol.”

Longman quotes Towner: “There it is, the first and only unambiguous reference to the double resurrection of the dead in the entire OT.”

Goldingay: “It is a vision or a flight of imagination, not a fully developed belief in the resurrection...The image presupposes a restoring to life of the whole person with its spiritual and material aspects....Vindication and exposure (of the wicked) after this life cannot be literally described, as vindication and exposure in this life such as the Psalms seek can be, so the latter becomes a metaphor for the former.”

Hartman and DiLella, AB: the renegades will be “totally devoid of any kind of life worthy of the name.” “Abhorrent” only appears here and in Isaiah 66:24, to which it is a clear reference.

The International Bible Commentary treats John 5:29 a parallel to Daniel 12:2.

New Bible Dictionary: “here it is the final physical resurrection which is in mind.”

R. Brown, John, AB: “This is the resurrection of the physically dead...The result of the judgment is a clear echo of Daniel 12:2, the first passage in the OT to proclaim clearly a resurrection into the afterlife.”

Beale and Carson: This is a possible parallel to Daniel 12:2.