THE EIGHTH PLAGUE.
IT is a vain thing for man to fight against God. Many times in the world’s history great nations have boasted in their gods against Jehovah, only to learn in their discomfiture and defeat, the greatness of His majesty.
Some three or four weeks after the plague of thunder, the wheat and spelt attained to their perfection, the gardens of the land of Egypt blossomed again, and once more these flower-loving people were able at their feasts to present their guests with nosegays, and to ornament their altars with garlands. The vines and fruit-bearing trees, however had been broken for the season.
Jehovah’s messengers were silent. Not that it is in any degree likely that Moses and Aaron were idle. No doubt the whole of the nation of Israel was already being assembled upon the Canaanitish borders of Goshen ready for their exodus, now near at hand. But Pharaoh was determined, and Israel remained his slaves.
Once more the servants of the Lord appeared before Pharaoh. Their words were abrupt and sever. “Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before Me? Let My people go, that they may serve Me. Else, if thou refuse to let My people go, behold, tomorrow will I bring the locusts into thy coast.”
Having delivered his message, Moses waited not far an answer, but “turned himself, and went out from Pharaoh.” Pharaoh’s great men trembled at those awful words, “the locusts,” especially at the thought of the appalling results which Jehovah declared this plague should bring upon their half-destroyed land. So Moses and Aaron were sent for in order that terms might be arranged, but, after a parley, “were driven from Pharaoh’s presence.”
Then “the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, that they may come up upon the land of Egypt, and eat every herb of the land, even all that the hail hath left.”
No line was to divide Goshen now. Israel would soon be out of Egypt, and the green things there, the fruits and herbs, would not be required by them anymore. The locusts were to destroy every green thing “through all the land of Egypt.” Israel was to leave that land barren and desolate as the sands of the desert which surround it.
In our favored country plagues of insects arc almost unknown. We remember a few years ago seeing a loose, dusky cloud, through which the sun shone, pouring as it were brown drops of rain, upon the country, and presently the sea-coast turned to a reddish hue, and the roads and fields were covered with myriads of ladybirds. Whence these little creatures had come, or why they had taken their way over the sea to the shores of England, none could tell. The Creator had called them up in His wisdom, His wind bore them to our shores, and they covered the earth where they fell, Of late years in parts of America countless grasshoppers have descended upon the growing cornfields and eaten up everything, and the more destructive beetle has in its innumerable multitudes devoured whole fields of potatoes. In the East the dreaded locust is at this day a terrible plague. There arises a dark cloud upon the horizon. Up it rolls with the wind, dense and thick, hiding the light of the sun, and darkening the day. Suddenly a few of the swiftest of the army alight upon the ground, and leap forward with rapid bounds, and in a short time the whirring of the wings and deafening buzz and clatter of the myriads of the devouring host is heard. On, on they come, mass upon mass. There is a grinding, crushing sound of their hungry jaws as they hurry over vineyard and garden, stripping every leaf from every tree, and every blade of green from the face of the earth. Man is utterly powerless against them—his arm is useless. Among the “four sore judgments” of the Lord, namely, the sword, the famine, the noisome beast, the pestilence, the noisome beast is one of the most terrible.
And now as suddenly as they came, the insect hosts are gone. The luxuriant country which but a few hours ago so richly promised plenty is more desolate than a wintry desert. The shady trees are stripped of every leaf; the scented fields are brown and bare; there is not a flower nor a blade of grass left—no, not one—and from the cloudless sky the summer’s sun scorches the face of the fruitless earth, and famine stares man in the face.
That you may form a faint notion of what a cloud of locusts is, we will give a few examples.
About 100 years ago a flight was seen in South Africa, which covered an area of 2000 square miles, and which, when driven into the sea by the wind, formed a bank of bodies upon the shore some four feet high and some 50 miles long. Less than 100 years since part of Europe was visited by an army of locusts. It advanced through the sky in several columns, each of which was several hundred fathoms wide, and in one place the dense black cloud was four long hours passing by. In India, only a few months ago the increasing multitudes of these insects swarmed in such numbers over a portion of the Madras Railway that the train was stopped by them, just as it might have been stopped by running into a snow-drift. It may also be interesting to know that, in 1848, a few locusts visited England and Scotland. In some places on the coast they were supposed to be flying fish, and in at least one locality their numbers were sufficient to do some slight damage to the crops.
But to return to the locusts sent upon Egypt. They were, Jehovah said to Pharaoh, to be such as “neither thy fathers, nor thy fathers’ fathers have seen, since the day that they were upon the earth unto this day.” (v. 6.)
Then the Lord commanded an east wind, which blew all that day and night, and when it was morning the east wind brought the locusts. They went up over all the land of Egypt. The sun was darkened. They ate every green thing which the hail had left, and so terrible were they, that never before were such locusts, and never again shall there be such.
In a short time they had rendered the whole land, from Goshen to its Ethiopian borders, a desert, and, having eaten leaves and herbs, they would have begun to gnaw the bark of the trees, and thus within a few more hours every tree must also have perished. Then Pharaoh cried out, “Take this death from me?” The Lord heeded Pharaoh’s cry, and sent a mighty strong west wind, which swept them all away into the Red Sea, and there remained not one locust throughout the whole of Egypt.
Thus His hand which had called up the plague removed it as wondrously as He had brought it upon the land. Does it not seem strange that after this Pharaoh should still harden himself against Jehovah, the God of Israel, the Almighty?
H. F. W.