What Does Exodus 10:14 Mean?
And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt and settled in all the border of Egypt. Very heavy were they. Before them there had been no locusts like them, and after them there will be none like them.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
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.THE KEY
The swarm is increase made weight, filling Mitzrayim (מִצְרַיִם, Mitzrayim, the constricted land) to its edges.
THE MEANING
You are brought face to face with a force that multiplies until it covers the whole land and settles within every boundary. Its weight is extreme, and the verse gives it no familiar comparison: nothing like it stands before or after it.
THE ROOT
כָּבֵד
kaved
GROWS FROM
כבד
כבד (k-b-d; kaved): to be heavy, to carry weight.
“very heavy” in this verse is kaved. The locusts are described as heavy, a weight pressing across the land. The same root gives כָּבוֹד (kavod; weightiness, honor), so the verse’s devastation is expressed through the language of weight.
ALSO GROWS
kavod: Weight, weightiness, honor.
כָּבוֹד
The swarm’s כָּבֵד (kaved; heavy) presence shares a root with weightiness: its reach is felt as a load on the land.
hikhbid: To make heavy, to press down with weight.
הִכְבִּיד
This verb shows the root’s movement from weight to the act of making something bear that weight.
הָאַרְבֶּה
ha’arbeh
GROWS FROM
רבה
רבה (r-b-h; ravah): to increase, become many.
“locusts” in this verse is ha’arbeh. The Hebrew word for locust, אַרְבֶּה (arbeh; locust), is associated with רבה (ravah; increase, become many), so multiplication is carried in the swarm’s name. Beside כָּבֵד (kaved; heavy), the verse describes increase made weight across the whole land.
ALSO GROWS
ravah: To increase, grow numerous.
רָבָה
This verb makes explicit the increase associated with the locust’s name.
harbeh: Much, in great quantity.
הַרְבֵּה
This branch carries the same root’s sense of abundance, illuminating the swarm’s overwhelming number.
THE PATTERN
A multiplying swarm becomes an overwhelming weight by occupying the ground it reaches.
What the shearer has left, the locust has eaten; and what the locust has left, the lapper has eaten; and what the lapper has left, the gnawer has eaten.He said, and locusts came, and the devourer, without number.And locusts come out of the smoke upon the earth, and to them is given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.THE THREAD
And I will make whole for you the years that the locust has eaten, the lapper, the gnawer, and the shearer, my great army which I sent among you.Joel uses the same Hebrew word, אַרְבֶּה (arbeh; locust), whose root is tied to increase, and names the years the swarm consumes. That root connection places this passage’s devastation beside the promise that what the locust devoured is restored.
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