from the reflection of the sun's rays from their wings.[1]
With עם רב ועצוּם (a people great and strong) we must consider the verb בּא (cometh) in Exo 10:1 as still retaining its force. Yōm (day) and ‛âm (people) have the same predicate, because the army of locusts carries away the day, and makes it into a day of cloudy darkness. The darkening of the earth is mentioned in connection with the Egyptian plague of locusts in Exo 10:15, and is confirmed by many witnesses (see the comm. on Ex. l.c.). The fire and the flame which go both before and behind the great and strong people, viz., the locusts, cannot be understood as referring to the brilliant light kindled as it were by the morning dawn, which proceeds from the fiery armies of the vengeance of God, i.e., the locusts (Umbreit), nor merely to the burning heat of the drought by which everything is consumed (Joe 1:19); but this burning heat is heightened here into devouring flames of fire, which accompany the appearing of God as He comes to judgment at the head of His army, after the analogy of the fiery phenomena connected with the previous manifestations of God, both in Egypt, where a terrible hail fell upon the land before the plague of locusts, accompanied by thunder and balls of fire (Exo 9:23-24), and also at Sinai, upon which the Lord came down amidst thunder and lightning, and spoke to the people out of the fire (Exo 19:16-18; Deu 4:11-12). The land, which had previously resembled the garden of paradise (Gen 2:8), was changed in consequence into a desolate wilderness. פּליטה does not mean escape or deliverance, either here or in Oba 1:17, but simply that which has run away or escaped. Here it signifies that part of the land which has escaped the devastation; for it is quite contrary to the usage of the language to refer לו, as most commentators do, to the swarm of locusts, from which there is no escape, no deliverance (cf. 2Sa 15:14; Jdg 21:17; Ezr 9:13, in
- ↑ The following is the account given by the Portuguese monk Francis Alvarez, in his Journey through Abyssinia (Oedmann, Vermischte Sammlungen, vi. p. 75): “The day before the arrival of the locusts we could infer that they were coming, from a yellow reflection in the sky, proceeding from their yellow wings. As soon as this light appeared, no one had the slightest doubt that an enormous swarm of locusts was approaching.” He also says, that during his stay in the town of Barua he himself saw this phenomenon, and that so vividly, that even the earth had a yellow colour from the reflection. The next day a swarm of locusts came.
