“The locusts have no king, yet they all advance in ranks” (Proverbs 30:27).

Locusts are grasshoppers.  All locusts are grasshoppers, but not all grasshoppers are locusts.  Grasshoppers are usually solitary creatures.  However, weather, such as droughts and floods, and other factors sometimes bring grasshoppers together in high density.  When this happens, behavior and even appearance in some species changes.  They become a destructive swarming group.  One source describes this change saying, “Drought drives locusts to crowd in a small area where there is vegetation.  Locusts then abandon their solitary phase as grasshoppers and reproduce at dramatically high rates forming bands of nymphs (young, non-flying hoppers – B.H.) and swarms as adults.  The transition from the solitary phase is triggered by the secretion of the hormone serotonin… In their swarms, locusts move in a single direction making stopovers on any green area they notice.  This movement causes extensive damage to crops.  Locusts are known to cover long distances in short periods leaving behind a trail of damage” (What is the Difference Between Grasshoppers and Locusts? Worldatlas.com).  It is in this destructive, swarming group phase that grasshoppers are generally referred to as locusts.    A single grasshopper is not very frightening.  It is not large.  It may reach two or three inches in length and weigh 0.01 ounces.  Some Israelites once compared their own strength and size to grasshoppers, after seeing giants in the land (Numbers 13:31-33); they should have trusted God.

A swarm of locusts is a powerful force.  In 1874-1875 a swarm of locusts devastated an area 1,800 miles long and 110 miles wide across the American West and Midwest and Canada (Looking Back at the Days of the Locust by Carol Kaesuk Yoon, April 23, 2002, nytimes.com).  Laura Ingalls Wilder described living through this in her book, On the Banks of Plum Creek.  National Geographic says, “A desert locust swarm can be 460 square miles in size and pack between 40 and 80 million locusts in less than a half a square mile.  Each locust can eat its weight in plants each day, so a swarm of such size would 423 million pounds of plants every day” (Locusts, Facts and Photos, nationalgeographic.com).  World Bank Group suggests that a swarm of 80 million could eat the amount of food per day as 35,000 people (The World Bank Group and the Locust Crisis, worldbank.org). Locusts are like an army upon a land (Joel 1:4-7; 2:25-26). 

This army has no king.  They move together searching for food and devouring large areas of land.  They may travel over 80 miles in a day (nationalgeographic.com).  Yet, no one is directing them.  No one is giving orders.  Yet, they go forth.

Applications for us: (1) There is power in the collective group, strength in numbers.  An individual Christian may not be a powerful force in the world.  However, if all members of the church do their part, then collectively we can be a powerful force in the world.  Let us “stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel (Philippians 1:27).  (2) We should not wait around to be told what to do.  We should be looking for opportunities to do good.  Jesus “went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil” (Acts 10:38).  We are instructed, “As we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Galatians 6:10).  We are to be “zealous for good works” (Titus 2:14) and “careful to maintain good works” (Titus 3:8).  Let us “learn to maintain good works, to meet urgent needs… (and) not be unfaithful” (Titus 3:14).