Locust

A grasshopper-like insect notorious for the famine-inducing devastations they cause when, under certain environmental conditions, they form swarms of tens of millions individual insects that darken the sky and eat up everything edible in their way. As a result the locust is one of the most potent symbols of terror and divine pleasure in the Old Testament. It is difficult to say if it is significant but the insect is signified by ten different Hebrew words in the Old Testament, of which four appear together in a single verse in Joel 1:4 and 2:25!

The locust—katydid, cricket and the grasshopper—is listed in Lev 11:22 as clean and suitable for food. The NT prophet John the Baptizer is well known for his diet of "locusts and wild honey" (Matt 3:4; Mk 1:6).

While the word 'locust' is a general term representing many different species, there are, nearly ten Hebrew words translated "locust" in English: 'arbeh (from the Hebrew word for 'abundance,' Exo 10:40), tseltselim (from the onomotopoeia for 'whirring,' 'buzzing,' Deut 28:42), chasil (from the word for 'consume,' 1 Ki 8:37), chagab (from a root meaning 'cover,' 2 Chron 7:13), geb, gob, gobay (two different spellings) (Isa 33:4; Nah 3:17; Amos 7:1), yeleq (from a verb which means 'to lick up' or 'to lap up,' Jer 51:14, 27) and gazam (from a verb meaning 'to cut off,' Joel 1:4; 2:25, Amos 4:9).