Sunday, June 05, 2016

Locusts

Today while reading Revelation: A Search for Faith in a Violent Religious World by Dennis Covington I read the following sentence, "... and the years that the locust ate began." Several chapters later he quotes Joel 2:25-- "And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten..."

Once upon a time, I know that's a tired phrase, but it does seem that in some bygone age far away and in a different space, a friend quoted that line. I only knew that the line came from the Hebrew Scriptures. After finding the source I began to seek out locust citations.

God threatens Pharaoh with locusts if he refuses to let --"my people go". Of course Pharaoh refuses and God tells Moses to stretch out his hand over Egypt. By the following morning the land was infested with locusts.

Later on in Leviticus God says that eating locusts is permissible.

Later on in Deuteronomy God warns the people about the consequences of disobedience. The people may bring the seed into the fields, but the locusts will eat most of the seed.

Yet if the locusts abound and famine occurs and people turn toward the Lord with a contrite heart, a heart that God knows, Solomon, in his prayer at the dedication of the Temple, asks God to forgive the person or the community.

Later on in Chronicles 7: 13-14 we hear that if God sends the locusts to devour the land and if " my people...humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

John ate locusts in the wilderness.

In Revelation the locusts appear and torture those who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.

My friend, a believer in every word in the Bible, felt that she had crossed the line of what God demanded, expected, spelled out implicitly, and because of her sin she had separated herself from God.

Years later she told me that God had restored the years that the locust had eaten.

Do we all have years that the locust ate?



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