Coming Locust Plagues
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But these local invasions are barely more than anecdotal side notes compared to how God declares that He will use locusts. He warned Israel, beginning long ago, of this instrument of punishment.
First notice this passage from Deuteronomy: “You shall carry much seed out into the field, and shall gather but little in; for the locust shall consume it...All your trees and fruit of your land shall the locust consume” (Deut 28:38, 42).
The book of Joel in chapter 2 calls hordes of locusts a “great army” sent by God (Joel 2:25). The previous chapter describes successive waves of crop destruction wrought by this “army”: “That which the palmerworm has left has the locust eaten; and that which the locust has left has the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm has left has the caterpiller eaten” (Joel 1:4).
The original words for the insects referenced in this passage present a truly sobering picture. They speak to the sense in Hebrew of “devouring,” “chewing” and “cutting down” plants. They also involve “swarming,” “ravaging,” “lapping up,” “licking” and finally the “finishing” of crops and other green plants.
Next look at the connection of these insects to famine, along with disease: “If there be in the land famine, if there be pestilence, blasting, mildew, locust, or if there be caterpiller [Hebrew: ravager]; if their enemy besiege them in the land of their cities; whatsoever plague, whatsoever sickness there be…” (I Kings 8:37).
This passage is part of a longer prophecy that describes how “if” a series of certain punishments are sent, God will pull back the punishment “if” the nation comes to repentance. While prophecy indicates that the nations today, or even one nation, will almost certainly not repent, individuals can.
Some nations are already seeing the front edge of these verses coming to pass. In 2010, the possible largest ever recorded locust infestation is threatening to sweep across Australia’s croplands like a hailstorm. It is projected to devastate tens of thousands of acres and cost farmers millions of dollars. The quick-breeding locusts, which multiply after periods of severe drought followed by intense rains, have stripped clean crops, pastures, orchards, gardens and sports fields from Queensland (northeast Australia) to Melbourne (the far south) and Adelaide (in the center).
“You’ve got to see it to believe it,” an owner of one of Australia’s largest carrot producers told The Age. ‘‘One centre pivot [plantation] got destroyed completely. We had about 25 million carrots in there. That gives you an idea of how many locusts there are.’’
Some single swarms cover areas as much as 186 square miles. These highly mobile insects can travel over 300 miles in one day in search of food. According to the Australian Plague Locust Commission (APLC), a small swarm of just 0.4 square miles can contain over 50 million locusts with the ability to devour 11 tons of forage in a 24-hour period.
The Independent reported, “A one-kilometre wide swarm of locusts can chomp through 10 tons of crops—a third of their combined body weight—in a day. The New South Wales Farmers Association said an area the size of Spain was affected and the Government of Victoria alone forecasts [$1.95 billion] of damage.
“Though locusts move slowly when the sun’s up, at night they can fly high and fast, sometimes travelling hundreds of kilometres.” One professor said this: “‘A farmer can go to bed at night not having seen a grasshopper all year and wake up in the morning to find his fields full of them.’”
“The warm, wet weather that prevailed last summer meant that three generations of locusts were born, each one up to 150 times larger than the previous generation” (emphasis mine).
This is one of many points in the book when the serious reader must make himself stop in order to ponder the sheer power of such statements!
Loss of Pollinating Insects
While an explosion of locusts has terrible implications for crop yields, elsewhere, ironically, a shortage of insects will lead to similar results.
A September 2010 BBC News article explained another very ominous trend. Here is a series of quotes from the article: “A decline in pollinating insects in India [1.1 billion people] is resulting in reduced vegetable yields and could limit people’s access to a nutritional diet, a study warns...Each year, India produces about 7.5 million tonnes of vegetables. This accounts for about 14% of the global total, making the nation second only to China in the world’s vegetable production league table.”
“The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that of the slightly more than 100 crop species that provide 90% of food supplies for 146 countries, 71 are bee-pollinated, primarily by wild bees, and a number of others are pollinated by other insects.”
“In a 2007 assessment of the scientific data on the issue, the UN Environment Programme observed: ‘Any loss in biodiversity is a matter of public concern, but losses of pollinating insects may be particularly troublesome because of the potential effects on plant reproduction and hence on food supply security.’”
“In 2007, about one third of the US domesticated bee population was wiped out as a result of a phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), with some commercial hive owners losing up to 90% of their bees.”
Other population drops among the natural predators of bad insects are also disrupting the fragile balance necessary for crop production. The Associated Press reported, “A fungus has killed off about 90 percent of [New Jersey’s] bat population, according to scientists who recently conducted a count of hibernating bats...[It is] linked to the deaths of more than a million bats in 11 states...and has also spread to Ontario, Canada.”
“Experts warn that the widespread loss of bats has potential ramifications for humans, since bats consume huge quantities of bugs, including insects that damage crops or carry West Nile and other potentially fatal diseases.”
Some kinds of bats also play a role in pollination similar to that of bees. If the fungus spreads, crop losses increase.
Hunger’s Psychological Effects
Again, realize that famine is coming regardless of where you live! And starvation always brings with it the darkest, most unthinkable conduct known to man. This is the true face of hunger.
History has repeatedly demonstrated a change in society when famine takes hold. As you read, do not let these words be distant. Make each one real in your mind!
Before the Irish Potato Famine, Ireland was pressing for greater self-rule, with half of its people living in poverty, surviving solely on the yearly potato crop. Then in 1845, a disease that thrived in Ireland’s wet climate destroyed that year’s harvest. Half of the population hovered on the brink of starvation. The blight continued for two more years. In the end, one million died from lack of food or ensuing disease.
Upon hearing reports, some of the British believed the Irish were exaggerating the dire conditions and refused to send sufficient aid. As the famine worsened, another million Irish fled, migrating to North America. Many, weakened by hunger, died en route.
In six years, the population dropped by two million. The number of Irish, prior to the famine, was about 8 million, compared to approximately 15 million on the British mainland. Ireland has never recovered. The current population of the north and south combined is still less than 8 million—compared to about 60 million on the British mainland, a 300 percent increase.
But the potato famine also exemplifies hunger’s psychological effects. When a brain is deprived of nutrients, coupled with the mental and emotional stresses of famine, a change comes over the individual’s personality.
In her book Famine: The Irish Experience, E. Margaret Crawford describes what characteristics first present themselves: “apathy, depression, and mental restlessness.” In addition, “food becomes an obsession.”
The book quotes Dr. Daniel Donovan, who worked with 1845 Irish Potato Famine victims: “I have seen mothers snatch food from the hands of their starving children; known a son to engage in a fatal struggle with his father for a potato; and have seen parents look on the putrid bodies of their offspring without evincing a symptom of sorrow.”
Severe hunger quickly leads to the unthinkable. During famine, victims often eat human waste out of desperation. (Ezekiel 4:12-13 declares this will again happen!)
Severe famine leads to even more horrific conditions. God foretells through Ezekiel in the bluntest of terms: “The fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of you, and the sons shall eat their fathers” (Eze 5:10). Hunger quickly turns to violence—and cannibalism!
Though it seems unbelievable, the record of history proves that when hungry enough, people will eat the dead. The book Flesh and Blood: A History of the Cannibal Complex details an AD 1200 famine in Egypt: “‘There was no longer any hope that the Nile would rise; and as a result the cost of provisions had already gone up…A vast multitude sought refuge in Misr and Cairo, where they were to meet with frightful famine and appalling mortality…and pestilence and a deadly contagion began to take their toll, and the poor, under the pressure of ever-growing want, ate carrion, corpses, dogs, excrement, and animal dung. They went further, and reached the stage of eating little children…roasted or boiled.’”
Notice again what God explains is the end result of famine, always brought on by disobedience to His Law: “And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and you shall eat, and not be satisfied…you shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall you eat” (Lev. 26:26, 29).
Those who are convinced that people could never sink to such depths will find their thinking changes—and in chilling fashion. What comes next is even worse, and it is what God says will happen: “And you shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters...The tender and delicate woman among you [the refined and sophisticated woman], which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter, and toward her young one that comes out from between her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear: for she shall eat them for want [lack] of all things...” (Deut. 28:53, 56-57).
God brings more graphic detail of the desperation—and ensuing action—brought by extreme hunger in the book of Lamentations, recorded by Jeremiah. Having recorded what is to come in multiple passages and in multiple books of the Bible, God wants these prophecies understood, leaving those who have been warned without excuse.
God first indicts cold-blooded parents for withholding food from their starving children. Notice: “Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: the daughter of My people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness. The tongue of the sucking child cleaves to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, and no man breaks it unto them” (Lam. 4:3-4).
The prophecy continues, now including young, middle-aged and old alike: “They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet [think the privileged nations of the West] embrace dunghills. For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of My people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her” (Lam 4:5-6).
Understand! This punishment is far worse than the hail of fire that quickly destroyed the city of Sodom—“that was overthrown as in a moment.” This death is slow and painful—allowing victims to contemplate their horrible state of affairs.
Lam 4:7-9 drive this home, speaking of those who were once “purer than snow…whiter than milk…more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire,” but whose appearance transforms to an awful condition en route to agonizing death by famine: “Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaves to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick. They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through [this death is slow—prolonged] for want of the fruits of the field.”
The account ends with the same cannibalism described elsewhere: “The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of My people” (Lam 4:10).
Do not easily dismiss such prophecies as describing things that cannot happen, or at least not today, in our modern civilization. In times of war and famine, people invariably return to the horror of cannibalism. Trapped without food for an extended period, almost everyone will resort to such behavior given the opportunity. Many will even kill living people to defeat hunger.
I have talked to American prisoners of war from World War II—who were interned in both Europe and Asia. They reported to me that without hesitation Allied prisoners would eat their fellow soldiers the moment they died. Their descriptions were too graphic for this book.
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