Search This Blog

What are the locusts in Revelation?


The falling star is an angel (meteors don't open shafts with keys) which opens up the Abyss.  It unleashes a swarm of locusts, it appears.  They don't harm Christians, just non Christians.
The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces. Their hair was like women's hair, and their teeth were like lions' teeth. They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle. They had tails and stings like scorpions, and in their tails they had power to torment people for five months.  Revelation 9:7-10
These locusts look like horses, with gold crowns, human faces, long woman’s hair, lion’s teeth, iron chests, wings, scorpion tails that sting.  If you take it literally, it becomes mythology.
Are they demons?  Could be…mostly likely it's an army.  Locusts appear in the Old Testament:
·         Exodus – one of the plagues
·         Isaiah, Jeremiah –likened to armies
Joel – 835 BC, speaks of a locust plague that devastated the area and compares it to a greater judgment coming soon, an army.  Known also as The Day of the Lord.
Joel uses language very similar to Revelation.
 Blow the trumpet in Zion;
       sound the alarm on my holy hill.
       Let all who live in the land tremble,
       for the day of the LORD is coming.
       It is close at hand-
 a day of darkness and gloom,
       a day of clouds and blackness.
       Like dawn spreading across the mountains
       a large and mighty army comes,
       such as never was of old
       nor ever will be in ages to come.
 They have the appearance of horses;
       they gallop along like cavalry.
 With a noise like that of chariots
       they leap over the mountaintops,
       like a crackling fire consuming stubble,
       like a mighty army drawn up for battle…
 They charge like warriors;
       they scale walls like soldiers.
       They all march in line,
       not swerving from their course…
 The LORD thunders
       at the head of his army;
       his forces are beyond number,
       and mighty are those who obey his command.
       The day of the LORD is great;
       it is dreadful.
       Who can endure it?...
 "And afterward,
       I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
       Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
       your old men will dream dreams,
       your young men will see visions.
 Even on my servants, both men and women,
       I will pour out my Spirit in those days.
 I will show wonders in the heavens
       and on the earth,
       blood and fire and billows of smoke.
 The sun will be turned to darkness
       and the moon to blood
       before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.  Joel 2:1-5,7,11,28-31