Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible (1898)
WORM. Several Hebrew words are thus translated which seem to designate indefinitely caterpillars or maggots, either as destructive, as loathsome, or as helpless and insignificant. For the larva of the clothes-moth, evidently mentioned in Isa 51:8, see Moth. " From the circumstance that maggots are found in putrefying flesh, we have the figurative expressions in Job 19:26; Job 21:26; Job 24:20; Isa 14:11.
Owing to the constant accumulation of filth and putrefaction in a valley near Jerusalem it was always alive with worms, and fires were maintained day and night to consume the sources of pestilence. Hence the allusion Isa 66:24; Mark 9:44, 1 Chr 2:46, Gen 24:48. At an advanced stage of some diseases worms are bred in the flesh from the eggs of the insect. Job 7:5; Ex 17:14; Acts 12:23. The meanness of these creatures, and their liability to be trodden under foot, afford the illustrations in Job 25:6; Ps 22:6; Isa 41:14.