Exodus Chapter 10 verse 5 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 5. - They shall cover the face of the earth, that one cannot be able to see the earth. This is one of the points most frequently noticed by travellers. "The ground is covered with them for several leagues," says Volney. "The steppes," says Clarke, "were entirely covered by their bodies." "Over an area of 1600 or 1800 square miles," observes Barrow, "the whole surface might literally be said to be covered with them." They shall eat the residue of that which escaped. Locusts eat every atom of verdure in the district attacked by them. "In A.D. ," says Barhebraeus, "a large swarm of locusts appeared in the land of Mosul and Baghdad, and it was very grievous in Shiraz. It left no herb nor even leaf on the trees. When their swarms appear," writes Volney, "everything green vanishes instantaneously from the fields, as if a curtain were rolled up; the trees and plants stand leafless, and nothing is seen but naked boughs and stalks." And shall eat every tree. The damage done by locusts to trees is very great. "He (the locust) has laid my vine waste, and barked my fig-tree; he hath made it clean bare and east it away; the branches thereof are made white" (Joel 1:7). Travellers constantly notice this fact. "When they have devoured all other vegetables," says one, "they attack the trees, consuming first the leaves, then the bark." "After having consumed herbage, fruit, leaves of trees," says another, "they attacked even their young shoots and their bark." "They are particularly injurious to the palm-trees," writes a third; "these they strip of every leaf and green particle, the trees remaining like skeletons with bare branches." A fourth notes that "the bushes were eaten quite bare, though the animals could not have been long on the spot. They sat by hundreds on a bush, gnawing the rind and the woody fibres." (See Pusey's Minor Prophets, p. 106.)

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(5) They shall cover the face of the earth, that one cannot be able to see the earth.--This is the case almost invariably with all the severer visitations of locusts. "The plain was covered with them," says Denon (Travels, p. 286), speaking of Egypt. "The ground is covered with them for several leagues," declares Volney (Travels, vol. i., p. 285)." Over an area of 1,600 or 1,800 square miles," observes Barrow, "the whole surface might literally be said to be covered with them." The Hebrew name, which means "multitudinous," is thus very appropriate.They shall eat the residue of that which is escaped . . . every tree.--Comp. Exodus 9:32. The description of Joel has never been surpassed: "A fire devoureth before them, and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them" (Joel 2:3). Comp. Volney (50s.100): "When their swarms appear, everything green vanishes instantaneously from the fields, as if a curtain were rolled up; the trees and plants stand leafless, and nothing is seen but naked boughs and stalks." Very graphic is Joel again in respect of this last feature: "He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig-tree: he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white" (Joel 1:7). Nor is it only shrubs, but even trees, that suffer. "They are particularly injurious to the palm-trees," says Burckhardt; "these they strip of everv leaf and green particle, the trees remaining like skeletons, with bare branches."