The Italian Memorandum

“…God prepared a worm…”

(Jonah 4:7)

“But I am a worm and not a man”

(Psalm 22:6; Job 25:6)

In Henry Morris’ Bible and Science Series, Morris says of the scarlet worm (coccus ilicus)—“This is a scarlet worm and the reason it was called that was because it had the ability to secrete a scarlet fluid which was used in making scarlet dye that they used in ancient days…The worm was identified with the scarlet color. The life cycle of that worm is something like this: when the mother worm was ready to give birth to the baby worms, she would find the trunk of a tree, a post or a stick somewhere and then she would plant her body in that wood …so firmly in it that she could never leave it again. Then, the young would be brought forth and the mother would die, and in the process, the scarlet fluid would stain her body and the body of the young and the tree and so on…”

This we do know about Jesus the Christ and his New Covenant—

(1) Jesus identified, in a Messianic way, with the “worm” of Psalm 22:6; Isa. 41:14; Lk. 24:44
(2) Jesus was a sin-sacrifice of scarlet specifications (Isaiah 1:18; Numb. 19:6; Hebrews 9:13,14)
(3) The blood of the covenant also involved scarlet (Heb. 9:19)
(4) The Jesus of the gospel accounts appears in the role of fulfillment as a scarlet robed priest (purple=mixture of blue and scarlet Ex. 28:6,33; Matt. 27:28).

We thank God for the scarlet worm (see Gal. 3:27)!

Robert M. Housby