3 And Moses and Aaron came in unto Pharaoh, and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before me? let my people go, that they may serve me.

4 Else, if thou refuse to let my people go, behold, to morrow will I bring the locusts into thy coast:

5 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 is escaped, which remaineth unto you from the hail, and shall eat every tree which groweth for you out of the field:

6 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. And he turned himself, and went out from Pharaoh.

At first a plague of locusts might sound like a step backward from the previous curses. God had just slain the Egyptians’ cattle with a plague, and their servants with fire and hail. There had been a real loss of life just recently, but locusts seem to be more of the caliber of the frogs, lice, and flies several curses ago.

But on closer examination, this is not the case at all. The previous animal nuisances may have been able to spread mild diseases or irritation, but the locusts would do far worse: they would eat all of the Egyptians’ grain! We had heard during the previous plague that the hailstorm had destroyed the flax and the barley, but not the edible crops like the wheat and the rye. God had been willing to leave Pharaoh the most important crops if he would let the Israelites go, and Pharaoh had initially agreed to this, but now Pharaoh went back on his word and so now the locusts were here to finish the job.

No more meat and no more grain, the Egyptians were drawing nearer and nearer to starvation! If God had taken just one source of food they could have relied upon the other, but piece-by-piece, He was taking it all. We can build up all manner of securities and contingencies against the powers of man, but no place is safe and no insurance is reliable when God comes calling.