Locust

Scripture references: Exodus 10:1–20; Leviticus 11:22; Deuteronomy 28:38; 1 Kings 8:37; 2 Chronicles 7:13; Psalm 78:46; 105:34; Proverbs 30:27; Joel 1–2; Nahum 3:15–17; Matthew 3:4; Mark 1:6; Revelation 9:1–11

The eighth plague — Exodus 10:1–20 — YHWH tells Moses to stretch out his hand over Egypt so that locusts come up on the land and eat every plant that the hail left. Pharaoh's servants beg him to let Israel go: "Do you not yet understand that Egypt is ruined?" (10:7). Pharaoh negotiates and then refuses. Moses stretches out his staff and YHWH drives an east wind all that day and night, and in the morning the east wind brings the locusts. They cover the face of the land so that it becomes dark, and they eat every plant and every fruit of every tree. Not a green thing remains in all the land of Egypt. Then Pharaoh urgently calls Moses and Aaron, confesses sin, and asks for the locusts to be taken away. A very strong west wind lifts them into the Red Sea — not one locust remains in all of Egypt. Then YHWH hardens Pharaoh's heart.

Clean for eating — Leviticus 11:22 — Among the winged insects that swarm on all fours, the locust according to its kind, the bald locust, the cricket, and the grasshopper are clean to eat. The locust is one of the only insects explicitly permitted in the Levitical food code.

Joel's army — Joel 1–2 — Joel describes a locust invasion as the Day of the LORD: "What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten" (1:4). Four stages of devastation — four locust names — consuming everything in succession. Joel 2 develops the image further: the locusts are YHWH's great army. "They run like mighty men; they climb the wall like men of war; they march each on his way; they do not swerve from their paths. They do not jostle one another; each marches in his path; they burst through the weapons and are not halted" (2:7–8). Before them the earth quakes; the sky grows dark. "The LORD utters his voice before his army, for his camp is exceedingly great; he who executes his word is powerful. For the Day of the LORD is great and very awesome; who can endure it?" (2:11). Joel's locust plague becomes the occasion for one of the great calls to repentance in the prophetic literature: "Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning... for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love" (2:12–13). And then the promise: "I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten" (2:25).

Wisdom from the locust — Proverbs 30:27 — Among the four things on earth that are small but exceedingly wise: "the locusts have no king, yet all of them march in rank." The locust swarm's coordinated movement without central command is presented as a form of instinctive wisdom — thousands moving as one with no hierarchy.

John the Baptist's food — Matthew 3:4; Mark 1:6 — John the Baptist's diet in the wilderness: "His food was locusts and wild honey." Both locusts (permitted in Leviticus 11:22) and wild honey are wilderness foods. John's diet situates him outside the agricultural economy of Palestine — he eats from what the desert provides.

Nahum's locust comparison — Nahum 3:15–17 — Nahum addresses Nineveh: "Your officials are like grasshoppers, your scribes like clouds of locusts settling on the fences in a day of cold — when the sun rises, they fly away; no one knows where they are." The locust swarm's sudden disappearance is used for the officials who flee when the city falls.

Revelation 9 — When the fifth angel blows his trumpet, a star falls from heaven and opens the shaft of the bottomless pit. Out of the smoke come locusts on the earth, given power like the power of scorpions. They are commanded not to harm grass or plants but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. "The appearance of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle: on their heads were what looked like crowns of gold; their faces were like human faces, their hair like women's hair, and their teeth like lions' teeth; they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the noise of their wings was like the noise of many chariots with many horses rushing into battle. They have tails and stings like scorpions... They have as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit" (9:7–11). The Revelation locusts are the inversion of Joel's locusts — not agricultural destruction but the torment of ungodly humanity; not YHWH's army for repentance but the army of the bottomless pit.

The locust is the insect of total devastation — plague, prophetic army, the years that YHWH says he will restore, and the creature that rises from the bottomless pit at the fifth trumpet. The Sanctum holds it as Canon-tier — the swarm that moves without a king, that carries both Joel's call to repentance and Revelation's vision of judgment, and whose restoration YHWH promises to those who return.