Psalms 78:46 · Bible study
Psalms 78:46 Commentary: God’s Sovereignty in the Plague of Locusts
Hebrew · 11 what the commentators say
Meaning in one sentence
Why does the psalmist say God gave crops to locusts? This study examines divine sovereignty, judgment, and the retelling of Exodus history.
Research Summary
- Meaning: God gave the Egyptians' crops to locusts as judgment; He is sovereign over nature and history.
- Key words: caterpillar (H2625, chasil = devourer); locust (H697, arbeh); increase (H2981, yevul = produce); labor (H3018, yegia = toil/product).
- Main debate: Whether the two terms denote different species or stages of locusts, but both clearly refer to the eighth plague.
- Theological theme: God's sovereign judgment through natural means as part of redemptive history.
- Best use: Teaching God's control over creation and the importance of remembering His acts for future generations.
Translation Comparison
BSB Berean Standard Bible 2020
He gave their crops to the grasshopper, the fruit of their labor to the locust.
WEB World English Bible 2000
He also gave their increase to the caterpillar, and their labor to the locust.
KJV King James Version 1769
He gave also their increase unto the caterpiller, and their labour unto the locust.
ASV American Standard Version 1901
He gave also their increase unto the caterpillar, And their labor unto the locust.
YLT Young's Literal Translation 1898
And giveth to the caterpillar their increase, And their labour to the locust.
Darby Darby Bible 1890
And he gave their increase unto the caterpillar, and their labour unto the locust;
Translations in other languages (9 available)
Dió también al pulgón sus frutos, y sus trabajos á la langosta.
E deu suas colheitas ao pulgão, e o trabalho deles ao gafanhoto.
Il livra leurs récoltes aux sauterelles,
und gab ihre Gewächse den Raupen und ihre Saat den Heuschrecken;
En Hij gaf hun gewas den kruidworm, en hun arbeid den sprinkhaan.
dette il loro raccolto ai bruchi e la loro fatica alle locuste;
I dał chrząszczom urodzaje ich, a prace ich szarańczy.
把他們的土產 交 給螞蚱，把他們辛苦得來的 交給蝗蟲。
He gave the increase of their fields to worms, the fruits of their industry to the locusts.
Verse in Context
Original Language (Biblical Hebrew)
Old Testament · Biblical Hebrew · Psalms 78:46
Source: STEPBible TAGNT/TEHB (CC-BY 4.0). Click or tap a morphology code to see the full parsing.
Scholars' Consensus
Commentators agree that this verse recalls the eighth plague of locusts against Egypt (Exodus 10:12, 15). Barnes identifies caterpillar (Hebrew חסיל) as a species of locust, meaning “the devourer.” Gill calls it “the same with the locust in the next clause” and notes that this plague destroyed all corn, wheat, vines and fruit trees, the fruit of much labor. Jamieson-Fausset-Brown observe that the two names highlight voracity and multitude. Calvin sees the whole psalm as showing both God’s tender care for His chosen people and their repeated rebellion. The Cambridge Bible adds that the psalmist goes back to “recount the miracles which preceded and prepared for the Exodus.” Taken together, the verse underscores God’s direct sovereignty: He gave the increase and labor to the locusts. No secondary cause is named; the hand of the Lord is primary. This is not impersonal disaster but purposeful judgment, and the retelling is meant to teach future generations about God’s power and Israel’s forgetfulness.
How settled is the interpretation?
Interpretive difficulty: Low
What is clear: The verse clearly refers to the plague of locusts in Egypt as an act of God's judgment, underscoring His sovereign control over creation and history.
What Scholars Agree and Debate
| Topic | Agreed | Debated |
|---|---|---|
| Identity of the insects | Both terms refer to locusts involved in the eighth plague of Egypt (Exodus 10). | Some commentators (Barnes, Gill) see 'caterpillar' and 'locust' as the same or closely related species; others note that Joel 1:4 uses four distinct terms, suggesting different stages or types of locusts. The precise biological identification is uncertain, but the effect, total devastation, is agreed upon. |
| Nature of God's action | God is the primary agent: He 'gave' the crops to the insects. This is an act of judgment. | Some traditions emphasize this as direct divine causation (God actively sends the locusts), while others see it as divine permission (God allows natural processes to bring judgment). Both affirm God's sovereignty, but the degree of active intervention is nuanced. |
| Purpose of the retelling | The verse is part of a historical psalm intended to instruct future generations about God's power and Israel's need for faithfulness. | Reformed commentators (Calvin, Matthew Henry) emphasize the warning against rebellion. Others, like the Cambridge Bible, focus on the preparation for mercy. Both agree that the retelling serves both to praise God and to exhort the hearer. |
Historical & Cultural Context
The verse sits within a long historical rehearsal (Psalm 78) that begins with a command to teach children (vv. 1, 6). After describing God’s wonders at the Exodus, the psalmist catalogs the ten plagues as signs “in the field of Zoan” (v. 43), the ancient royal city of Egypt. Locusts were a terrifying reality in the ancient Near East: swarms could darken the sky and strip every green thing in hours (Exodus 10:15). The Hebrew pair חסיל (chasil) and ארבה (arbeh) likely refer either to two species or to different stages of the same insect, Joel 1:4 uses four terms for locusts to describe total devastation. The psalmist’s language is deliberate: God gave the crops to the insects. This active verb (H5414, natan) emphasizes divine causation in a culture that often saw locust plagues as simply natural. By retelling the plague, the psalmist makes a theological claim: Yahweh, not Pharaoh or blind fate, controls creation. The historical memory of the locust plague also functions as a warning to Israel. Later in the psalm (vv. 56, 58) the people themselves provoke God, and the same God who judged Egypt can judge His own. Yet the immediate context contrasts judgment with deliverance: verses 52, 53 picture God leading His people out like a flock. The locusts are not the final word; redemption is.
Textual Notes
The consulted sources note no significant textual variants for this verse. The Hebrew text is stable across manuscripts, and the English translations (WEB, KJV, ASV, BSB, YLT, Darby) agree closely, varying only in the rendering of the insect names. No textual issues affect the meaning.
Reception History
Psalm 78:46 has been read across Jewish and Christian traditions as a clear reference to the Exodus plague of locusts. In Jewish liturgy, the psalm’s recounting of plagues appears in the Passover Haggadah, serving as a reminder of God’s power to deliver. Christian commentators from the patristic period onward have used the verse to illustrate the seriousness of sin and the certainty of divine judgment. Reformation-era writers (Calvin, Geneva Bible, Matthew Henry) focused on the dual themes of God’s gracious adoption and Israel’s ingratitude, with this verse showing how judgment can open the way for redemption. In more recent scholarship, the verse is read as part of the psalm’s teaching purpose, a warning to each generation not to repeat the rebellion of their ancestors.
Preaching This Verse
Three-point outline
- God gives, and God takes away. The verb “gave” (v. 46) is the same Hebrew word used for God’s gifts of manna and water earlier in the psalm. The same hand that provides can also remove. The locusts are not a random catastrophe but a purposeful act of the sovereign Lord.
- Judgment targets the fruit of human labor. The Egyptians toiled to produce crops; the locusts consumed both the “increase” (the growing plants) and the “labor” (the finished harvest). God’s judgment addresses not only resources but the pride and self-reliance behind them.
- History is a sermon. Psalm 78 is a teaching psalm. When we recount God’s judgments, whether ancient or near, we are not morbid; we are remembering who is in charge and why we need mercy.
Five-point outline
- God’s control over creation, Locusts obey His command.
- The specificity of divine judgment, Plagues targeted Egypt’s economy, gods, and pride.
- Human effort cannot secure itself, All labor fails without God’s protection.
- Judgment as a backdrop for redemption, The locusts cleared the way for God’s people to leave.
- A call to teach the next generation, Like the psalmist, we pass on both the warnings and the deliverance.
Illustration hooks
- A farmer who loses an entire season’s harvest to a pest infestation, the mix of helplessness and the question “Why?” That raw feeling is the same one the psalmist addresses by pointing to God’s hand.
- Modern crop-devastating events: swarms of desert locusts in East Africa (2019, 2020). News reports showed fields turned to bare earth in hours. The question of sovereignty presses in such moments.
Questions your congregation is asking
- If God is in control of natural disasters, does He cause them, or merely allow them?
- Why does the Bible include such detailed accounts of judgment against Egypt? How do they apply to us?
- What should we do when our hard work is destroyed through no fault of our own?
Leading a Discussion
This verse appears in a psalm that functions as a family history lesson. It asks us to look back at what God did, not simply as a record of facts, but as a mirror for our own hearts. As you read the passage together, notice how the writer connects judgment with the command to teach children (vv. 1, 6). The plague of locusts is not just about Egypt; it is about knowing who God is.
Discussion questions
- What does the verse tell us about God’s relationship to nature? Is He directly involved in events like locust plagues?
- Why does the psalmist mention both “increase” (the growing crop) and “labor” (the toil of harvesting)? What is lost beyond the food?
- Read Exodus 10:12, 15. How does that historical account deepen your understanding of Psalm 78:46?
- In verses 42, 55, God delivers Israel from Egypt. Why does the psalmist spend so many lines on the plagues before describing the rescue?
- How does seeing judgment as an act of God (not just nature) change the way we process modern disasters or personal loss?
- The psalm is meant to be taught to children. What would you want a child to understand about this verse?
- How can we hold together God’s sovereign judgment and His tender mercy in the same story?
Word Study
The key original-language words in this verse. Select any word for its full lexicon entry — meaning, every occurrence in Scripture, and related words.
Cross-References
Source: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (TSK, public domain)
| Exodus 10:12 | Yahweh said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, that they may come up on the land of Egypt, and eat every herb of the land, even all that the hail has left.” |
| Exodus 10:15 | For they covered the surface of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened, and they ate every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left. There remained nothing green, either tree or herb of the field, through all the land of Egypt. |
| II Chronicles 6:28 | “If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence, if there is blight or mildew, locust or caterpillar; if their enemies besiege them in the land of their cities; whatever plague or whatever sickness there is— |
| Psalms 105:34 | He spoke, and the locusts came with the grasshoppers, without number. |
| Psalms 105:35 | They ate up every plant in their land, and ate up the fruit of their ground. |
| Isaiah 33:4 | Your plunder will be gathered as the caterpillar gathers. Men will leap on it as locusts leap. |
| Joel 1:4 | What the swarming locust has left, the great locust has eaten. What the great locust has left, the grasshopper has eaten. What the grasshopper has left, the caterpillar has eaten. |
| Joel 1:7 | He has laid my vine waste, and stripped my fig tree. He has stripped its bark, and thrown it away. Its branches are made white. |
Interlinear and lexical data from STEPBible (CC BY 4.0). Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0). Commentaries are public domain.
For personal reflection
Read the devotional page — prayer, application, and "for families"
What the Commentators Say
10 public-domain commentaries, condensed into plain language.
Adam Clarke's Commentary Methodist/Wesleyan 1826
The caterpillar and - the locust - See on Exo 10:13 (note).
Barnes' Notes on the Bible Protestant 1832
Barnes notes that the Hebrew word rendered as “caterpillar” literally means “the devourer” and actually refers to a kind of locust, not a caterpillar. He also clarifies that “their labor” means the fruit of their work, specifically the harvests in their fields.
Calvin's Commentaries Reformed 1564
Calvin sees this psalm as a deliberate two-sided contrast: God's tender adoption and constant care for His chosen people, and their repeated, treacherous rebellion against such a generous Father. He also highlights a distinct act of renewed grace—God's second election in choosing David to rule, showing God's goodness persisting despite human faithlessness.
Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges Anglican 1880
But as God multiplied His mercies, Israel multiplied its acts of rebellion: and in order to set the heinousness of their ingratitude in a still stronger light, the Psalmist goes back to recount the miracles which preceded and prepared for the Exodus.
Geneva Bible Notes Reformed 1599
The Geneva note points out that God sent specific creatures, the caterpillar and the grasshopper, to consume both the crops and the hard work of the people. The judgment is precise: what they planted and labored over was taken away by these pests.
Gill's Exposition of the Bible Baptist 1748
Gill treats the caterpillar and locust as the same creature, not two separate plagues. He notes that the locusts devoured everything green — grain, grass, vines, and fruit trees — undoing all the labor farmers had invested. This was the eighth plague.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Commentary Protestant 1871
JFB points out that the Hebrew word for caterpillar comes from its voracious appetite, while the Hebrew word for locust derives from its sheer multitude. Each name highlights a different destructive quality of the insect plague.
Keil & Delitzsch OT Commentary Protestant 1876
Keil-Delitzsch observes that God restrains His anger specifically because He takes human frailty and perishableness into account. The psalmist then selectively recounts the plagues of Egypt, omitting some similar ones, to emphasize Israel's continued ingratitude despite such overwhelming deliverance.
Matthew Henry's Commentary Reformed/Presbyterian 1710
Matthew Henry emphasizes that Israel's sin in the wilderness was not ordinary forgetfulness but a deliberate limiting of the Holy One, provoked Him despite witnessing His mighty signs in Egypt. They turned back
Wesley's Explanatory Notes Methodist/Wesleyan 1754
Wesley notes that the herbs mentioned are specifically those that grow through human effort and careful cultivation. His emphasis falls on the connection between the ground's produce and the labour required to bring it forth.