Texts in Conversation
Revelation’s description of locusts is similar to the Wisdom of Solomon, which reshapes the Exodus plagues. In it, Egypt’s suffering from locusts and flies is part of a similar pattern showing how God judges oppressors but shows mercy to Israel.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Wisdom of Solomon 16:9
Deuterocanon
4 For it was necessary that inescapable lack should come upon those oppressors, but that to these it should only be shown how their enemies were tormented. 5 For even when terrible raging of wild beasts came upon your people, and they were perishing by the bites of crooked serpents, your wrath didn’t continue to the end; 6 but for admonition were they troubled for a short time, having a token of salvation to put them in remembrance of the commandment of your law; 7 for he who turned toward it was not saved because of that which was seen, but because of you, the Savior of all. 8 Yes, and in this you persuaded our enemies that you are he who delivers out of every evil. 9 For the bites of locusts and flies truly killed them. No healing for their life was found, because they were worthy to be punished by such things.
Date: 50 BCE – 50 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
Revelation 9:3
New Testament
1 Then the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth, and he was given the key to the shaft of the abyss. 2 He opened the shaft of the abyss and smoke rose out of it like smoke from a giant furnace. The sun and the air were darkened with smoke from the shaft. 3 Then out of the smoke came locusts onto the earth, and they were given power like that of the scorpions of the earth. 4 They were told not to damage the grass of the earth, or any green plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their forehead. 5 The locusts were not given permission to kill them, but only to torture them for five months, and their torture was like that of a scorpion when it stings a person.
Date: 92–96 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... The Egyptian plague tradition is also narrated in the Wisdom of Solomon in the framework of seven antitheses in which punishments meted out against the Egyptians are contrasted with blessings experienced by Israel: (a) blood (11:1–14); (b) “a multitude of irrational creatures” (11:15) or “a multitude of animals” (16:1–4), i.e., possibly the frogs and/or gnats and/or flies and/or locusts of Exodus; (c) people slain by the bites of locusts and flies (16:9); (d) thunderstorms and fire (16:15–19); (e) darkness (17:1–20); (f) destruction of firstborn (18:5–25); and (g) the drowning of Egyptians in the sea (19:1–9). While the author does not follow the ten-plague schema of Exodus 7–13 but uses a seven-plague schema, it is noteworthy that he exhibits no direct dependence on any of the earlier seven-plague schemas found in Ps 78:43–52; Ps 105:27–36; Amos 4:6–13; and Artapanus. The author includes the drowning of the Egyptian army in his seven-fold schema and omits cattle disease (the fifth plague) and boils (the sixth plague) ..."
David Aune, Word Biblical Commentary: Revelation 6-16 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2017), 369.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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