Several years ago, as I was driving to work, I heard a talk show host fulminate against the opponents of genetically modified foods—what those opponents call “Frankenfood.” Why, he asked, did they oppose genetic modification when it led to high yield, bug resistant crops? It was a reasonable question, I thought, although I am not scientifically literate enough to weigh in on the debate over the costs and benefits of genetically modified foods.
Then, when I got to the office, I read Revelation 8.13–9.12 and realized how terrifying John’s vision must have been to those who lived in the age before scientific agriculture, pesticides, and genetic modification. What John saw, after all, would have struck fear into the heart of any pre-modern farmer, for it presaged the destruction of his crops. John saw a swarm of locusts from hell.
Robert H. Mounce comments: “Behind this picture are two scenes from the OT. Exod 10:1–20 tells of the plague of locusts that devoured all vegetation through the land of Egypt. Joel 1:2–2:11 interprets the devastation of Israel by locusts as a portent of the destruction that will come with the day of the Lord (Joel 1:15; 2:1, 11). Throughout the OT the locust is a symbol of destruction (Deut 28:42; 1 Kgs 8:37; Ps 78:46). Bred in the desert, they invade cultivated areas in search of food. They may travel in a column a hundred feet deep and up to four miles in length, leaving the land stripped bare of all vegetation.”[i]
John’s vision of locusts, in other words, is a vision of divine judgment. They swarm because they have been summoned by the fifth angel’s trumpet blast (9.1). And their power is circumscribed: They cannot “harm the grass of the earth or any green plant or any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads” (9.4), and they can only operate for five months (9.5).
These are not ordinary locusts, however. Verses 7–10 pile simile upon simile to describe their appearance: “like horses prepared for battle,” “like crowns of gold,” “like human faces,” “like women’s hair,” “like lion’s teeth,” “like breastplates of iron,” “like the noise of many chariots,” “like scorpions.” Some interpreters have thought John might be describing helicopters or some other modern military aircraft. Verse 11 lays that idea to rest swiftly: “They have as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he is called Apollyon.” The locusts, in other words, are demons, and their king is a demon too—perhaps the devil itself.
The appearance of these locusts from hell has its intended effect: “And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them” (9.6). Just as earthly locusts strip the land of vegetation, so the demonic locusts strip human beings of hope without allowing them to die.
Why would God allow such a thing? Again, although it is hard to wrap our minds around such an idea, even this divine judgment contains a measure of grace. It represents one of God’s final attempts to get people to see that there is no hope outside of faith in him. They have rebuffed his loving advances and spurned his kindly invitations. Perhaps, he thinks, they will change their minds if they see the impossibility of life outside of him.
I wonder: Will we?
[i] Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 186.
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