Translations
F.O.G.MPrimary
F.O.G MessageHow much less mortal man, who is but a maggot — the son of man, who is nothing but a worm!"
F.O.GSecondary
The F.O.GHow much less enosh, who is a maggot — and ben-adam, who is a worm!"
KJV
King James VersionHow much less man, that is a worm? and the son of man, which is a worm?
BSB
Berean Standard Biblehow much less man, who is but a maggot, and the son of man, who is but a worm!”
Footnotes
*Rimah* (rotting worm/maggot) and *tola'at* (worm/crimson worm) form a devastating synonymous parallelism, reducing humanity to the lowest imaginable creature. But *tola'at* is no ordinary word: it is the identical term in Psalm 22:6 — 'I am a *tola'at*, not a man' — the psalm of dereliction that begins 'My El, my El, why have You forsaken me?' Bildad deploys *tola'at* as a term of contempt; the suffering psalmist wears it as a cry of anguish; and Yeshua/Jesus inhabits it on the cross as the incarnate Son who became the lowest of the low. Compounding the typology, the *tola'at* worm was literally crushed to produce the crimson/scarlet dye used in priestly garments and atonement rites — a detail that gives the word quiet but extraordinary resonance with sacrificial imagery. FOG preserves *enosh* and *ben-adam* to maintain the Hebrew parallelism and its intertextual freight; FOG Message's 'son of man' deliberately echoes the messianic title, inviting the reader to hear Bildad's insult as an unwitting prophecy.