תּוֹלַעַת (Tola'ath)

MEANINGWorm; crimson, scarlet. The crimson worm, the small scale insect whose body yields the crimson dye of the ancient world, and the name of that dye. Psalm 22:6: 'But I am a worm, and no man.' The common Hebrew word for the worm of decay and the grave is rimmah; David did not use it. He used tola'ath.

GRAMMARFeminine noun, Strong's H8438, also written tola' (the form in Isaiah 1:18). Most of its appearances in the Old Testament are translated 'scarlet' or 'crimson', not 'worm'. In the Tabernacle instructions it is paired with shani (H8144) as tola'ath shani, crimson-worm scarlet, which the KJV renders 'scarlet' (Exodus 26:1; 28:5-6). In Isaiah 1:18 the two words stand apart: shani is the 'scarlet' and tola' is the 'crimson'.

SIGNIFICANCEThread 6 traces God dwelling among His people, and the Tabernacle that housed that presence was woven from the tola'ath: the ten curtains of Exodus 26:1 and the High Priest's ephod in Exodus 28:6 were dyed crimson-worm scarlet. Psalm 22, the psalm Jesus quoted from the cross, puts the same word in the Messiah's mouth, and Isaiah 1:18 sets it in the call to sinners: crimson sin made white as wool. The Kermes dye came from the female's body and colored royal and priestly garments across the Near East; the fuller devotional account of the life cycle, with its caveats, is in the Crimson Worm essay.

KEY VERSE / SCRIPTURESPsalm 22:6 ('But I am a worm, and no man'); Isaiah 1:18 ('though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool'); Exodus 26:1 (the Tabernacle curtains: 'blue, and purple, and scarlet'); Exodus 28:5-6 (the ephod: 'of scarlet').

CROSS-REFERENCESPsalm 22:6 · Isaiah 1:18 · Exodus 26:1 · Exodus 28:6 · שָׁנִי shani (H8144: scarlet) · רִמָּה rimmah (the worm of decay) · /resources/essays/crimson-worm