My 3-year-old daughter spots a picture of a chicken pulling a long squishy substance from the ground. “Snake!” she says. 

“Worm,” I correct her. 

As I write, the cooler days of September have arrived. But my thoughts turn to the warmer lands around the Mediterranean Sea — where a ­crimson worm has recently com­pleted her life cycle and her young begun theirs — and to a spiritual lesson drawn from this unlikely source. 

In the unique transfer of life from the female crimson worm to her babies, we find a remez — a Hebrew word that means “hint,” used by rabbis when speaking of a hidden or allegorical message in scripture. 

I am indebted to Pastor Faisal John of Grace Bible Church Pakistan for his explanation of this remez in a recent newsletter.  

As a gateway to the remez, let’s look first at Psalm 22:1, quoted by Jesus as he hung on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 

Jesus followed the practice of Hebrew rabbis who would quote a short portion of scripture as a way of alluding to its entirety. For his Hebrew observers, well familiar with the Psalms, his words would have brought to mind the entirety of Psalm 22, which says in part:  

But I am a worm, and not human,

scorned by others, and despised by the 

people.

All who see me mock at me;

they make mouths at me, they shake 

their heads;

“Commit your cause to the Lord; let 

him deliver —

let him rescue the one of whom he 

delights!”

. . . I am poured out like water,

and all my bones are out of joint;

my heart is like wax;

it is melted within my breast;

my mouth is dried up like a potsherd,

and my tongue sticks to my jaws;

you lay me in the dust of death.

For dogs are all around me;

a company of evildoers encircles me.

My hands and feet have shriveled; . . .

Can you imagine these words running through your mind as you watch Jesus on the cross? Blood trickling down his forehead from the crown of thorns shoved mockingly onto his head, his body glistening with sweat and blood and arched in pain? 

“I am a worm and not human.” What a picture of degradation and contempt!

And what a picture of something else, something more surprising. 

The common Hebrew word for “worm” is rimma, but in Psalm 22:6 the word translated as “worm” is tola. Of the 43 times tola is used in Old Testament passages, a few times it describes a devouring worm, such as the worm that ate the vine that shaded Jonah. However, in Old Testament scripture, tola is used most often to describe the crimson color excreted from the crimson worm, or to fabric dyed in this crimson. 

Tola, shani or tola’at shani are synonyms used to denote either the worm, the dye or the color — a bright red orange used in numerous Jewish holy things. The crimson worm, or to-la’at shani, was present in the Tabernacle curtain and veil, in the high priest’s garments, in the ritual cleansing of lepers and in the ashes of the red heifer used for purification, to name a few.

“I am tola,” says Jesus. 

Now listen to the way in which life passes from the female crimson worm to her babies. 

When the female crimson worm has reached maturity, she attaches herself to wood, generally a certain type of tree. There she forms around herself a hard red shell. Under the shell, beneath her own body, she lays her eggs. 

When the eggs hatch, they feed on the living body of the mother worm for three days. As the mother dies, she secretes a bright red dye that flows down over the tree and her baby worms, staining both red. 

On day four, the tail of the mother worm draws up into her head, and the hard crimson substance becomes a waxy white. The waxy white substance, which looks like a patch of wool, begins to flake off and fall to the ground like snow. 

Do you find any parallels here to our Savior’s death on the cross?

Knowing the remez of the crimson worm gives new meaning also to Isaiah 1:18: 

“Come now, let us argue it out,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet [shani], they shall be like snow. Though they are red like crimson [tola], they shall become like wool.”