John the Baptist ate locusts, ew

By Elizabeth Prata

I was pondering the ‘stain out a gnat, swallow a camel’ verse yesterday (Matthew 23:24). That blog essay is here.

There is an Old Testament link in Leviticus 11:20 23. 41, and 42 that mention winged things as detestable. The people were not to eat them. Some Laws are easy to follow…

Oh no, did John the Baptist sin by eating locusts? He, a scrupulous Nazirite, and who Jesus called the greatest of men?

Maybe it’s true. I mean, Lot sinned much and yet was still called righteous. It could happen … No. I need to look into this.

If you read the Old Testament Law in Leviticus, indeed, the people were not to eat bugs. They were declared unclean. Here is the verse,

All the winged insects that walk on all fours are detestable to you. (Leviticus 11:20).

and,

Now every swarming thing that swarms on the earth is detestable, not to be eaten. 42Whatever crawls on its belly, and whatever walks on all fours, whatever has many feet, in regard to every swarming thing that swarms on the earth, you shall not eat them, because they are detestable. 43Do not make yourselves detestable through any of the swarming things that swarm; and you shall not make yourselves unclean with them so that you become unclean. (Leviticus 11:41-43).

Four times in a short amount of time, God called detestable. OK, we get it. Insects are unclean.

So, did John the Baptist sin by eating locusts?

No.

There was an exclusion to the ‘no bugs’ rule!

Yet these you may eat among all the winged insects that walk on all fours: those which have jointed legs above their feet with which to jump on the earth. These of them you may eat: the locust in its kinds, the devastating locust in its kinds, the cricket in its kinds, and the grasshopper in its kinds. But all other winged insects which are four-footed are detestable to you. (Leviticus 11:21-23).

So it was allowable to eat grasshoppers, crickets, and locusts. I wonder how they taste? Business Insider has an article about “5 Bugs you Can Eat” including the ‘beginner bug’.

High in protein, zinc, and iron, locusts can be pan-fried, deep-fried, or even covered in chocolate, as noted in BBC. Locusts are said to have a sort of shrimpy, nutty flavor. They were even renamed “sky prawns” during an Australian swarm, according to Bugsfeed.

‘Sky prawns,’ lol. How to cook them? These 5 countries eat locusts as a delicacy–

Locust is also the only creature that’s considered kosher. They fry the winged creatures and even serve it as desserts. … So Israelis prefer to drop the locusts in a boiling broth, clean them off, roll them in a mixture flour of coriander seeds, garlic chili powder, and finally deep fry them.

They are often served on a skewer as street food. This picture is in China but the same can be seen in the Middle East. They are a delicacy to many people groups in the world, not a novelty like they are to us in America.

They are nutritious, say Nutritionists. The ones mentioned in the Bible that are allowed to eat are easy to catch. When they swarm, there are plenty to eat, preserve, and feed to one’s livestock. We can envision John the Baptist in the desert grabbing up a handful, skewering them, and cooking over a small fire. Or maybe not envision it…

The fact that John made his food of them is emblematic of his poverty and simple, humble life.

THE LOCUST. In The Scripture alphabet of animals, by HN Cook, 1842

The locust is called an insect, as well as the ant and the bee, but instead of being harmless, as they usually are, it does a great deal of injury. It is also much larger than they; for it is generally three inches long, and sometimes as much as four or five. The plague of the locusts was the eighth that God sent upon the Egyptians, because they would not let the children of Israel go, as he commanded; and it was a very terrible one indeed. The Bible says, “They covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left; and there remained not any green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the field through all the land of Egypt.” This is the way they often do in those countries, though perhaps it is not common for so many to come at once.

They fly in companies of thousands together, and so close that they look like a great black cloud. When they alight on the ground they all come down in a body, and immediately begin to devour the grass and grain; they also eat the leaves of the trees, and every green thing they can find. The people dread them more than they do the most terrible fire or storm; because though they are so small, they destroy all the food, and leave the people ready to starve. When the inhabitants see them coming over their fields, they try to drive them away by making loud noises or by kindling fires; but this does little good.

It is said that a great army of locusts came over the northern part of Africa about a hundred years before the birth of Christ. They consumed every blade of grass wherever they alighted; also the roots, and bark, and even the hard wood of the trees. After they had thus eaten up every thing, a strong wind arose, and after tossing them about awhile, it blew them over the sea, and great numbers of them were drowned. Then the waves threw them back upon the land, all along the sea-coast, and their dead bodies made the air so unwholesome that a frightful pestilence commenced, and great numbers of men and animals died.

Many travellers have seen these great clouds of locusts, and describe them in their books. One says that he saw a company consisting of so many that they were an hour in passing over the place where he was. They seemed to extend a mile in length and half a mile in width. When he first noticed them, they looked like a black cloud rising in the east; and when they came over head, they shut out the light of the sun, and made a noise with their wings like the rushing of a water-fall. Another swarm is mentioned which took four hours to pass over one spot; and they made the sky so dark that one person could not see another at twenty steps off.

You can now understand two or three passages from the Bible which I will mention. David says in the 23d verse of the 109th Psalm, “I am tossed up and down as the locust;” that is, as the clouds of locusts are tossed about by the wind. In the first chapters of Joel God threatens to send the locust among the people, because of their wickedness; and he says of them, “Before their faces the people shall be much pained; all faces shall gather blackness. They (the locusts,) shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war. They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon the wall; they shall climb up upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief.” An English clergyman who visited countries where the locusts are found, a few years ago, says that these verses describe them exactly as he has himself seen them

Cook, H. N. (1842). The Scripture alphabet of animals. American Tract Society.