Locusts —What are they? What does the Bible say about them?

There are 9 or 10 Hebrew words used in Scripture to signify locust.

Locusts belong to the order of Orthoptera and the family Acrididae, i.e., straight-winged. They are of many species. The ordinary Syrian locust resembles the grasshopper, but is larger and more destructive. Locusts can “eat up to their own body weight in a single day,” and in mass have been known to wipe out crop fields in a day. The largest swarms are believed to contain up to 80-million individuals and have been seen covering 460 square miles (1191 square kilometers).

“The legs and thighs of these insects are so powerful that they can leap to a height of 200 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.”

Plagues of locusts

The devastations they make in Middle Eastern lands are often very appalling. The invasions of locusts are among the heaviest calamites that can befall a country’s agriculture.

“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 color’ (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 northwest wind from the Mediterranean swept the locusts into the Red Sea.” —John Cunningham Geikie, Hours with the Bible, or, the Scriptures in the Light of Modern Discovery and Knowledge (1896-97), ii., 149.

“So the Lord shifted the wind to a very strong west wind which took up the locusts and drove them into the Red Sea; not one locust was left in all the territory of Egypt.” —Exodus 10:19

Locusts as food

John the Baptist’s diet of “locusts and wild honey” is the best-known New Testament example and was certainly literal (Matthew 3:4; Mark 1:6).

Some later Christian traditions suggested “locusts” meant carob pods (“St. John’s bread”), but the Greek word and the Leviticus permission make the insect reading the straightforward one. Qumran texts (Temple Scroll, Damascus Document) also treat locusts as permitted food.

By the Mosaic law, they were locusts were considered “clean,” which means that the Hebrews could lawfully eat them.

Leviticus forbids most winged swarming insects that “walk on all fours” but makes an exception for those with jointed legs for hopping:

“All the swarming things that fly and that walk on all fours are detestable to you. Yet these you may eat among all the swarming things that fly and that walk on all fours: those which have above their feet jointed legs with which to jump on the earth. These of them you may eat: the locust in its kinds and the devastating locust in its kinds and the cricket in its kinds and the grasshopper in its kinds. But all other swarming things that fly and that are four-footed are detestable to you.” —Leviticus 11:20, 21, 23 LSB

Locust-eating was not unique to Israelites. 7th-century BC Assyrian palace reliefs from Nineveh show servants carrying locusts skewered on sticks as food for royal banquets—an elite context, not just famine food.

Earlier Mesopotamian texts from Mari mention collecting locusts as delicacies. Herodotus describes Libyans drying locusts and mixing them with milk. Diodorus Siculus wrote of Ethiopian Acridophagi (locust-eaters) near the Red Sea.

Locusts were both a practical response to crop-destroying swarms and, at times, a traded or prized item. Yemenite and some North African Jewish communities preserved the tradition into the 20th century.

Common preparations included roasting or boiling in salted water, removing heads/legs/wings, drying in the sun or baked in an oven, grinding into flour, stewed or fried in butter, mixing with honey and made into small cakes. Taste is often compared to shrimp or prawns.

Nutritional value

Locusts (especially the desert locust Schistocerca gregaria and migratory locust Locusta migratoria) are nutrient-dense. Composition varies by species, diet, life stage (nymph vs. adult), and whether values are given fresh or dry. Fresh locusts are typically 70–80% water.

Typical ranges on a dry-matter basis:

• Protein: 46–76% (commonly 50–65%)
• Fat: 10–32%
• Fiber/chitin: ~5–12%
• Minerals: 3–7%
• Energy: roughly 430–530 kcal per 100 gram dry

On a fresh-weight basis, protein is often in the mid-teens to low 20s of grams per 100 gram, with energy around 150–220 kcal/100 gram depending on preparation (one analysis of desert locusts reported ~179 kcal/100 gram fresh). Dried or processed samples naturally concentrate the nutrients.

They are said to supply a good profile of essential amino acids (though lysine and methionine can be relatively lower than in some meats). Fat includes both saturated and unsaturated fatty acids (oleic and palmitic often prominent). Minerals commonly include potassium, phosphorus, iron, zinc, and variable calcium. Some studies find vitamin E, traces of vitamin A or D, and B12 (sometimes higher than in conventional meats). Chitin acts as indigestible fiber.

Compared with conventional meat, locusts can match or exceed protein density on a dry basis and offer a lower environmental footprint when harvested from swarms. They are not a complete everyday diet by themselves (low in some B vitamins and carbohydrates), and wild-caught insects from pesticide-treated areas pose contamination risks. Shellfish-like allergies are possible because of shared proteins.

Locusts remain eaten today in parts of Africa, the Middle East, and Asia—roasted, fried, or ground—continuing a practice that was already established in the biblical world.

Hebrew words that have been translated as locust

• אַרְבֶּה (’arbeh) — the most common word; the swarming/migratory locust (Exodus 10 plague, Joel, etc.)
• סָלְעָם (solʿam) — “bald locust” (Leviticus 11:22 only)
• חַרְגֹּל (ḥargol) — listed as edible in Leviticus 11:22; often “cricket” or “katydid” in modern versions
• חָגָב (ḥagav) — usually “grasshopper”; also edible in Leviticus 11:22
• גָּזָם (gazam) — “cutting locust” / “palmerworm” (Joel 1–2, Amos 4:9)
• יֶלֶק (yeleq) — “hopping locust” / “cankerworm” (Joel, Nahum, Jeremiah).
• חָסִיל (ḥasil) — “destroying locust” / “caterpillar” (Joel, 1 Kings 8:37, Psalm 78:46)
• גּוֹב / גֹּבַי (gob / gobay) — a swarm (Amos 7:1, Nahum 3:17)
• גֵּב (geb) — locusts (Isaiah 33:4); from the same root as gob (above) and sometimes counted with it
• צְלָצַל (tselatsal) — “whirring locust” (Deuteronomy 28:42 only)

The Great Tribulation “locusts”

The word locust also occurs in Revelation in allusion to this devastating insect, but here is not referring to literal locust insects. They are a vast horde of demons—fallen angels long imprisoned in the abyss (the bottomless pit)—released during the 5th trumpet judgment of the Great Tribulation. These locusts are a literal future release of real demons, described with vivid, symbolic imagery drawn from the Old Testament locust plagues (Exodus 10, Joel 1–2) so that the Apostle John (and we) can grasp their swarming, devastating nature.

Then out of the smoke came locusts upon the earth, and power was given them, as the scorpions of the earth have power. …And the appearance of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle. And on their heads appeared to be crowns like gold, and their faces were like the faces of men.—Revelation 9:3, 7

The scene in Revelation 9

A “star from heaven which had fallen to the earth” is given the key to the bottomless pit. That fallen star is Satan. God permits him to open the abyss. Smoke like a great furnace pours out, darkening the sun and air; out of the smoke come these supernatural locust-like demons.

These beings have already been bound for a very long time. MacArthur connected them to the angels who “did not keep their own domain” (Jude 6), the spirits “in prison” from Noah’s day (1 Peter 3:19, 20; 2 Peter 2:4), and the Genesis 6 “sons of God” episode. They are the worst of the demonic host, incarcerated until this appointed moment. When they are released they add to the demons already active on earth, producing an unprecedented infestation.

Why they cannot be literal locusts or something else

• They are commanded not to harm grass, green plants, or trees—the opposite of what real locusts do.

• Proverbs 30:27 says real locusts have no king; these creatures do.

  These demonic “locusts” do have a king: “the angel of the abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he has the name Apollyon” (both mean “Destroyer”). Satan is “the prince of the power of the air” and, until later in Revelation, still has access to heaven; the king of the pit is more likely a high-ranking demon who has been in charge of the imprisoned host.

• Their appearance (Rev. 9:7–10) is grotesque and unlike any insect: horses prepared for battle, crowns like gold, faces like men, hair like women’s hair, teeth like lions’, iron breastplates, wings that sound like charging chariots, and scorpion-like tails.

• They cannot be attack helicopters, Islamic armies in gas masks, etc., because the text says they come from the abyss.

• They are given power “as the scorpions of the earth have power.” They may torment only those who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads (unbelievers). They are not permitted to kill; the torment lasts 5 months. People will seek death and not find it. These demons are satisfying their long-frustrated desire to possess and afflict human bodies, producing agony comparable to a scorpion sting but far worse and inescapable.

  This event will be like opening every prison on earth and turning the most violent inmates loose—except that these are supernatural beings from hell itself.