Locusts swarm through Scripture as more than insects. They arrive as signs in a covenant world where rain, harvest, and pests are not random but woven into the Lord’s moral government of peoples and places. When God sent locusts on Egypt, the land went dark under their wings and fields were stripped bare, a judgment that unmasked idols and humbled a king who would not bow (Exodus 10:12–15; Psalm 105:34–35). When John saw locusts rise from the Abyss, they did not eat grain; they tormented the unsealed, a vision not of weather but of the spiritual war that will break over the earth in the Tribulation (Revelation 9:1–6; Revelation 9:4).
Between those scenes lies the prophet Joel, who watched a real plague and heard a louder trumpet behind it. He called the nation to tear hearts, not hems, because the God who strikes can heal and the God who withholds rain can pour out His Spirit on all flesh when people return to Him in truth (Joel 1:4; Joel 2:12–13; Joel 2:28–29). Taken together, the Bible’s locusts teach judgment, summon repentance, and point to hope that does not wither when fields are bare.
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Historical and Cultural Background
In the ancient Near East, locusts were dreaded not because they kill with tooth and claw but because they come in uncountable waves, eating everything green until a countryside looks burned though no fire has passed. Israel knew this fear from the land’s first warnings. Moses listed locusts among the covenant curses: “You will sow much seed in the field but you will harvest little, because locusts will devour it,” a line that tied agricultural loss to spiritual drift in a nation called to love the Lord with all its heart (Deuteronomy 28:38; Deuteronomy 6:5). Solomon later prayed in the dedication of the temple that if God shut up the heavens so there was no rain, or sent plague or locusts, and the people turned and prayed toward the house, He would hear from heaven and forgive (2 Chronicles 7:13–14). In that frame, a swarm was never only weather. It was a sermon.
The Psalms remember how God used locusts to humble empires and rescue His people. When recounting the Exodus, the psalmist writes, “He spoke, and the locusts came, grasshoppers without number; they ate up every green thing in their land,” a retelling that shows the plagues as the Lord’s word in motion against Egypt’s gods and Pharaoh’s pride (Psalm 105:34–36; Numbers 33:4). Prophets used the image to read the times. Amos spoke of a coming locust wave in a vision, and when he pleaded, “Sovereign Lord, forgive! How can Jacob survive? He is so small!” the Lord relented, a glimpse of judgment delayed at intercession and a reminder that prayer matters even when clouds of wings are forming (Amos 7:1–3). Other prophets borrowed the picture to describe human armies that would move with locust-like speed and appetite, a way to help people feel the nearness of days when walls would not save and barns would empty (Nahum 3:15–17; Jeremiah 51:14).
Wisdom literature adds texture. Proverbs notes that locusts “have no king, yet they advance together in ranks,” a small observation with large meaning, because the ordered movement of a mindless swarm exposes how fragile human confidence can be when God appoints nature as His rod (Proverbs 30:27). That one verse will become a striking foil when Revelation shows locusts who do have a king—Apollyon—because the final storm is not mindless but led, not natural but infernal (Revelation 9:11).
Biblical Narrative
The eighth plague in Egypt is the Old Testament’s most concentrated account. Moses stretched out his staff, an east wind blew all that day and night, and by morning locusts covered Egypt so completely that the land was dark and “nothing green remained on tree or plant in all the land,” a judgment that fell after hail had already shattered crops and that left Pharaoh’s countryside stripped to its bones (Exodus 10:12–15; Exodus 10:5; Exodus 9:31–32). Pharaoh confessed sin and begged for relief, but when the Lord drove the locusts into the Red Sea with a west wind, his heart hardened again, proving that fear of loss is not the same as fear of the Lord (Exodus 10:16–20; Proverbs 1:7).
Joel begins with a line that sounds like a drumbeat: “What the locust swarm has left the great locusts have eaten; what the great locusts have left the young locusts have eaten; what the young locusts have left other locusts have eaten” (Joel 1:4). He calls priests to weep and farmers to mourn, and then names the day behind the day: “The day of the Lord is near,” which means a real crisis was also a rehearsal for a greater one unless Judah returned to the Lord with fasting and tears that came from the heart, not the closet (Joel 1:13–15; Joel 2:12–13). Joel describes the locusts like an army climbing walls and rushing through defenses, their sound like chariots on mountain tops, imagery that presses the people to feel how quickly strong places fail when God marches through their illusions (Joel 2:4–9). Yet the trumpet of judgment is followed by the promise of mercy. If the people return, the Lord will be “jealous for his land,” send grain and new wine, drive the northerner far away, and restore “the years the locusts have eaten,” words that taste like rain after drought and that tie repentance to renewal in the land (Joel 2:18–20; Joel 2:25–27). Then Joel lifts the horizon. “I will pour out my Spirit on all people,” he writes, and “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved,” a promise Peter will later cite at Pentecost to explain the Spirit’s coming while also pointing forward to the great and awesome day still ahead (Joel 2:28–32; Acts 2:16–21).
Elsewhere the prophets use locusts as both memory and threat. The Lord says through Amos, “I struck your gardens and vineyards with blight and mildew. Locusts devoured your fig and olive trees, yet you have not returned to me,” a refrain that reveals the moral aim behind losses that many might call “bad luck” (Amos 4:9). In Nahum, Nineveh’s merchants are like locusts that settle in coolness and fly away when the sun rises, a taunt that riches and trade confederacies will scatter when the Lord’s heat bears down (Nahum 3:16–17). These lines keep the theme alive between Egypt and the last book: locusts remain part of God’s vocabulary with a fallen world.
Revelation’s locusts come with the sound of trumpet five. John sees a star fallen to earth. The star is given a key, the Abyss is opened, and smoke pours out like the breath of a furnace until the sun is darkened and “out of the smoke locusts came down on the earth” with power to torment like scorpions (Revelation 9:1–3). They are commanded not to harm grass or any plant, a striking reversal of Exodus and Joel, but only to afflict “those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads,” a protection that links this judgment to the earlier sealing of the servants of God, twelve thousand from each tribe of Israel, and shows divine mercy marking out a remnant before wrath rolls on (Revelation 9:4; Revelation 7:3–8). Their torment lasts five months, and men “will long to die, but death will elude them,” a sentence that captures the horror of pain without escape and the moral aim of judgment that stops short of final death so that men might yet repent (Revelation 9:5–6; Revelation 9:20–21).
John’s description is meant to defy casual naturalism. He says the locusts look like horses prepared for battle; they wear something like crowns; their faces look like human faces; their hair like women’s hair; their teeth like lions’ teeth; their breastplates like iron; their wings sound like many chariots rushing to battle; their tails sting like scorpions; and they have a king, the angel of the Abyss, named Abaddon in Hebrew and Apollyon in Greek, both names meaning “Destroyer” (Revelation 9:7–11). The point is not that anyone will net one for a museum; it is that the world will groan under a judgment that is spiritual, intelligent, and restrained by God’s command even as it rends those who would not receive the truth.
Theological Significance
The Bible’s locusts teach the sovereignty of God. He alone commands creation this way. When He spoke in Egypt, wind carried insects like an army across borders and another wind flushed them into the sea when their work was done (Exodus 10:13–19). When He warned Israel, He made clear that locusts could be covenant discipline intended to bring a people back from hardened ways to a living relationship with Him (Deuteronomy 28:38; Amos 4:9). When He opens the Abyss, He sets limits so that the locusts cannot touch grain or the sealed, proving that even in the Tribulation the Lord’s hand is steady and His judgments are measured toward righteous ends (Revelation 9:4–5; Revelation 16:5–7).
They also reveal the moral structure of the world. In a covenant order, sin corrodes more than conscience. It dries up streams, empties barns, and brings pests at the worst time, not as blind fate but as God’s pressure against stubbornness so that people will return to the One who gave them fields and rains in the first place (Leviticus 26:18–20; Acts 14:17). Joel’s locusts call priests and farmers to the same altar because worship and work rise and fall together when God speaks (Joel 1:9–13). Revelation’s locusts show what happens when people persist in idolatry. John says that after the torment, “the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent,” clinging to idols that cannot see or hear, a grief that proves pain alone cannot produce repentance; only grace can (Revelation 9:20–21; Romans 2:4).
A dispensational reading holds the storyline in its proper pieces. Old Testament locusts often fall under the rubric of covenant curses for Israel in the land. They run alongside blessings for obedience and warnings for disobedience, all within God’s administration of His people under the Law (Deuteronomy 28:1–2; Deuteronomy 28:15; 2 Chronicles 7:13–14). Revelation’s locusts belong to a future period of Tribulation when God resumes His dealings with Israel as a nation and pours out judgments on a Christ-rejecting world, with the Church distinct from Israel and caught up to be with the Lord prior to this period according to the blessed hope (Revelation 6–9; Revelation 7:4–8; 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17; Titus 2:13). The sealing of the 144,000 from the tribes of Israel before trumpet judgments, and the command that locusts not touch those sealed, align with this distinction and show mercy in the middle of wrath (Revelation 7:3–8; Revelation 9:4).
The contrast between Proverbs and Revelation adds a doctrinal edge. Proverbs says locusts have no king, yet march in order, a marvel of instinct that magnifies the Creator’s wisdom in small things (Proverbs 30:27; Psalm 104:24). Revelation says the end-time locusts have a king—Apollyon—so their onslaught is not instinct but intent, not natural but demonic, which means that the Tribulation will unveil dimensions of spiritual conflict that the world has not yet borne (Revelation 9:11; Ephesians 6:12). This contrast marks the shift from covenant discipline through creation to climactic judgment through supernatural agents and keeps readers from flattening Revelation 9 into a merely poetic plague.
Finally, the locust theme announces both warning and hope. God’s judgments are not ends in themselves. Joel’s book moves from a stripped land to a restored land, from empty barns to overflowing vats, from priestly lament to glad praise, all because the people returned to the Lord who is “gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love” (Joel 2:13; Joel 2:18–27). The same God who commanded a swarm also promises a Spirit poured out on sons and daughters, and a fountain of salvation for all who call on His name before the great and dreadful day arrives (Joel 2:28–32; Romans 10:13).
Spiritual Lessons and Application
One lesson is to treat losses as summons, not merely setbacks. When crops fail, projects break, or plans are eaten by a thousand small frustrations, wise hearts ask whether the Lord is pressing for attention. Amos records the Lord saying, “Yet you have not returned to me,” after locusts and blights, a sentence that teaches us to look past the surface and answer God with quick repentance rather than slow explanations (Amos 4:9; Psalm 139:23–24). This is not superstition but covenant realism. The Father disciplines those He loves and calls them near (Hebrews 12:5–6).
Another lesson is to repent from the heart. Joel says to “rend your heart and not your garments,” because God looks past religious theater to the inner turn that throws down idols and runs home to the Father (Joel 2:12–13; Isaiah 1:11–17). In practice, that looks like telling the truth, making restitution where needed, and seeking the Lord while He may be found, trusting that He still delights to show mercy when people humble themselves under His mighty hand (Isaiah 55:6–7; 1 Peter 5:6–7). When hearts turn, God loves to restore “the years the locusts have eaten,” not by erasing the past but by filling the future with fruit that could not grow in pride’s soil (Joel 2:25–27; James 4:6).
A third lesson is to beware of idols that promise harvest without holiness. In Egypt, the plagues were judgments on the gods; in Judah, high places promised rain and fertility apart from the Lord; in our time, the gods are more discreet but no less demanding—security, image, appetite, and power promise green fields while eating the soul. Revelation says that even under torment many did not repent of “worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood,” which means pain alone cannot break a grip that only grace can loose (Revelation 9:20–21; 1 John 5:21). The antidote is a renewed fear of the Lord, the beginning of wisdom that makes room for no rivals (Proverbs 9:10; Matthew 6:24).
A fourth lesson is to live ready for the day when judgments intensify. The Church does not await the Tribulation as its appointed wrath, yet every generation is called to watchfulness, holiness, and witness while the day is still called today (1 Thessalonians 5:9–11; Romans 13:11–12). Revelation’s locusts warn the world that God will not forever permit defiance. They also comfort believers by showing that even then God marks and keeps His own. That double edge should make us urgent in evangelism and steady in hope, praying for mercy now and pointing many to the name that saves before the Abyss opens (Revelation 7:3; Jude 22–23; Acts 4:12).
A final lesson is to hold to Christ as our shelter and song. The God who sent locusts on Egypt provided lamb’s blood that turned wrath aside, a figure fulfilled in the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, so that judgment can pass over those under His blood (Exodus 12:7; John 1:29; Romans 5:9). The same Lord who commanded Joel to call a fast also promised the Spirit who empowers weak people to bear faithful witness in hard days (Joel 2:15–17; Acts 1:8). In Christ we do not deny disaster; we meet it with repentance, prayer, and hope that rests in promises stronger than any swarm.
Conclusion
Locusts in Scripture are theology with wings. They expose idols, puncture pride, and turn eyes upward. In the Law they are named as covenant rods. In the prophets they become a trumpet for repentance and a doorway to restoration. In Revelation they arrive as a demonic host, restrained yet terrible, to torment those who will not wear the mark of the living God. Through them all runs the same sovereign mercy: the Lord wounds to heal, warns to save, and restores what judgment stripped when people return to Him. He governed Egypt’s winds, Judah’s harvests, and John’s visions, and He still governs our days. The right response is not dread but repentance and faith, because the One who opens the Abyss also opens a fountain for cleansing, and the One who sends a swarm also pours out His Spirit on all who call on His name (Zechariah 13:1; Joel 2:28–32).
“Even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.
(Joel 2:12–13)
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