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Topic: "Biblical" Locust Plague
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SoftTouch
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Member # 2316
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posted
OK, I'm officially Creeped Out! < ~~Shiver~~ >
I've just been reminded today that we're due for the 17 year locust this year ![[crying]](graemlins/crying.gif) I HATE Those Red Eyes! ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
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Psalm 119:104Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way. 105Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
Posts: 3465 | Registered: Nov 2003
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Caretaker
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Member # 36
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posted
The locusts referenced are a type of grasshopper. The western states experienced plagues of grasshoppers during the dustbowl, with even harness being eaten.
Easton's Bible Dictionary
Locust [N] [S]
There are ten Hebrew words used in Scripture to signify locust. In the New Testament locusts are mentioned as forming part of the food of John the Baptist (Matthew 3:4; Mark 1:6). By the Mosaic law they were reckoned "clean," so that he could lawfully eat them. The name also occurs in Revelation 9:3,7, in allusion to this Oriental devastating insect.
Locusts belong to the class of Orthoptera, i.e., straight-winged. They are of many species. The ordinary Syrian locust resembles the grasshopper, but is larger and more destructive. "The legs and thighs of these insects are so powerful that they can leap to a height of two hundred 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." Locusts are prepared as food in various ways. Sometimes they are pounded, and then mixed with flour and water, and baked into cakes; "sometimes boiled, roasted, or stewed in butter, and then eaten." They were eaten in a preserved state by the ancient Assyrians.
The devastations they make in Eastern lands are often very appalling. The invasions of locusts are the heaviest calamites that can befall a country. "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 colour' (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 north-west wind from the Mediterranean swept the locusts into the Red Sea.", Geikie's Hours, etc., ii., 149.
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16: And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh..
Posts: 3978 | From: Council Grove, KS USA | Registered: Jun 2002
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Endoxos
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Member # 2929
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Silly! ^_^ I meant as a *true* Biblical plague. I remember once out in California, there was thousands of locusts, all over the place. You couldn't step anywhere without going crunch. ...and then the next year was the plague of the "little white butterflies", thousands of these too, and each time you drove (especially on the highway), your car would be covered in white mush.
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Posts: 362 | From: HELP! I'm stuck in a DOS window! | Registered: Mar 2004
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Reasonable
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Member # 2936
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posted
Here's the link to the UN story.
quote:
You needn't worry about *real* locusts...
I'm not so sure about that! Here in northern Utah we get swarms of 'locusts' every summer, causing quite a panic among farmers.
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"Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD . "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.
Isaiah 1:18 (NIV)
Posts: 1 | From: Ogden, UT | Registered: Mar 2004
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LiteralD
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Member # 2922
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posted
Endoxos I am very interested in what you wrote. I myself had a similar thought about the "Locusts"
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Posts: 25 | From: London, Ontario CANADA | Registered: Mar 2004
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Endoxos
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Member # 2929
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posted
I have heard that the locusts symbolically represent the Muslim Arabs. They have a man's face (obviously), women's hair (long), bodies of locusts (various Muslim writings indicate a special connection to the locust, and the locust was a symbol of the Ishmaelites), wearing a crown (turban), sting of a scorpion (anyone who lives in a desert knows how quickly a scorpion can sting, and this shows their speed of attack) and could not harm the plants and such (Muslims, when waging war, are forbidden to hurt the plants).
In Joel, it even talks of an army that is like that of locusts. You needn't worry about *real* locusts... Revelation talks about our modern problem of hostile Muslims.
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Posts: 362 | From: HELP! I'm stuck in a DOS window! | Registered: Mar 2004
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SoftTouch
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Member # 2316
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posted
Ewww--oooo <Shiver> Reading that makes my skin crawl!
At the end of the article was a related link "Leprocy Makes A Comeback" but the link didn't work. However, I'm not surprised if this is correct.
For me (who has a Phobia of Bees unfortunately) the worst part of the book "Revelation" are the Locust. I know a lot of things are related by symbolic images, but what do you think these Biblical Locusts are? Are they litterally Locusts?
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Psalm 119:104Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way. 105Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
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KnowHim
Admin
Member # 1
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"Biblical" Locust Plague Threatens Mideast Ahead of Passover, U.N. Agency Warns of Potential Devastation
With the Passover celebration just weeks away, a locust plague of biblical
proportions could threaten parts of the Middle East and Africa, according to a
United Nations agency. An outbreak that potentially could darken the sky and
consume everything in its path is "in progress on the Red Sea coast in Saudi
Arabia where swarms are forming," the Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture
Organization said ... Read on...
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