diff --git a/packages/blaze-tools/token_tests.js b/packages/blaze-tools/token_tests.js
index 3e4592a2ac..91aa8bd369 100644
--- a/packages/blaze-tools/token_tests.js
+++ b/packages/blaze-tools/token_tests.js
@@ -71,4 +71,8 @@ Tinytest.add("blaze-tools - token parsers", function (test) {
   runValue(parseStringLiteral, "'\\\\'", '\\');
   runValue(parseStringLiteral, "'\\\"'", '\"');
   runValue(parseStringLiteral, "'\\\''", '\'');
+
+  test.throws(function () {
+    run(parseStringLiteral, "'this is my string");
+  }, /Unterminated string literal/);
 });
diff --git a/packages/blaze-tools/tokens.js b/packages/blaze-tools/tokens.js
index d7c3db1e44..441d070fb4 100644
--- a/packages/blaze-tools/tokens.js
+++ b/packages/blaze-tools/tokens.js
@@ -183,7 +183,7 @@ BlazeTools.parseStringLiteral = function (scanner) {
     }
   }
 
-  if (match[0] !== quote)
+  if (! match || match[0] !== quote)
     scanner.fatal("Unterminated string literal");
 
   jsonLiteral += '"';