BULL EAGEN 
OF THE 
BROOKLYN ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 
VoL. XII APRIL, 1918 INGE 2 
THE GRASSHOPPERS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
By R. P. Dow, Brooklyn, N. Y. 
The plague recorded in Exodus, X, cannot be considered more 
literally than its predecessors, but it brings in a word signifying 
locust or grasshopper, which is one of several in classic Hebrew 
and which invites extensive comparisons. The passage reads: “ To- 
morrow will I bring the locusts unto thy coast: And they shall 
cover the face of the earth, that one cannot be able to see the 
earth: and they shall eat the residue of that which has escaped, 
which remaineth unto you from the hail, and shall eat every tree 
which groweth for you out of the field: And they shall fill thy 
houses, and the houses of all thy servants, and the houses of all 
the Egyptians ; which neither thy fathers, nor thy fathers’ fathers 
have seen, since the day that they were upon the earth unto this 
day. 
«_. Stretch out thy hand over the land of Egypt, for the 
HOCUSESS ses 
“|. when it was morning the east wind brought the locusts. 
“ And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested 
in all the coasts of Egypt: very grievous were they; before them 
there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be 
such. 
“" . . a mighty strong west wind, which took away the locusts, 
and cast them into the Red Sea; there remained not one locust 
in all the coasts of Egypt.” 
The Hebrew word is arbeh, possibly from a verb rabah, to mul- 
tiply or become numerous, hence to swarm. The Allegorist knew 
