Locust: There are ten Hebrew words used in Scripture to signify locust. In the
New Testament locusts are mentioned as forming part of the food of
John the Baptist
(Matthew 3:4; Mark 1:6) By the Mosaic law they were reckoned
"clean," so that he could lawfully eat them. The name also occurs in
(Revelation 9:3,7) in allusion to this Oriental devastating insect. Locusts
belong to the class of Orthoptera, i.e., straight-winged. They are of
many species. The ordinary Syrian locust resembles the grasshopper,
but is larger and more destructive. "The legs and thighs of these
insects are so powerful that they can leap to a height of two hundred
times the length of their bodies. When so raised they spread their
wings and fly so close together as to appear like one compact moving
mass." Locusts are prepared as food in various ways. Sometimes they
are pounded, and then mixed with flour and water, and baked into
cakes; "sometimes boiled, roasted, or stewed in butter, and then
eaten." They were eaten in a preserved state by the ancient
Assyrians. The devastations they make in Eastern lands are often very
appalling. The invasions of locusts are the heaviest calamites that
can befall a country. "Their numbers exceed computation: the hebrews
called them 'the countless,' and the Arabs knew them as 'the
darkeners of the sun.' Unable to guide their own flight, though
capable of crossing large spaces, they are at the mercy of the wind,
which bears them as blind instruments of Providence to the doomed
region given over to them for the time. Innumerable as the drops of
water or the sands of the seashore, their flight obscures the sun and
casts a thick shadow on the earth
(Exodus 10:15; Judges 6:5; 7:12; Jeremiah 46:23)
(Joel 2:10) It seems indeed as if a great aerial mountain, many miles
in breadth, were advancing with a slow, unresting progress. Woe to
the countries beneath them if the wind fall and let them alight! They
descend unnumbered as flakes of snow and hide the ground. It may be
'like the garden of Eden before them, but behind them is a desolate
wilderness. At their approach the people are in anguish; all faces
lose their colour'
(Joel 2:6) No walls can stop them; no ditches arrest
them; fires kindled in their path are forthwith extinguished by the
myriads of their dead, and the countless armies march on
(Joel 2:8,9)
If a door or a window be open, they enter and destroy everything of
wood in the house. Every terrace, court, and inner chamber is filled
with them in a moment. Such an awful visitation swept over Egypt
(Exodus 10:1-19) consuming before it every green thing, and stripping
the trees, till the land was bared of all signs of vegetation. A
strong north-west wind from the Mediterranean swept the locusts into
the Red Sea.", Geikie's Hours, etc., ii., 149)
