Swarms
of Locust Descend upon the Giza Monuments in Cairo Egypt
One of the highlights of the Plagues of Ancient Egypt in the great drama of redemption for the early Children of Israel, was the 8th Plague of the Swarms of Locusts that destroyed all the food for their families and livestock for that year. Without food and no one to export food to them, the Egyptian Empire of that day descended into chaos and civil dissent. So it may again be so today.
One of the biggest factors of the “Arab Spring” revolution was the restlessness and dissent of the Arab people with the skyrocketing food prices that had left their families in poverty and despair as Arab despots clinging to their spigots of oil, sucked the life blood out of the Egyptian economy and her peoples. We ask are we seeing a warning today of what may occur again as the Egyptian economy under now religious despots come under the judgment of the G-d of Israel?
The Giza Pyramids near Cairo Egypt
As reported in Destination Yisra’el on February 11, 2011 in the article titled, “The Price to America for Security and Safety: Billionaire Middle East Rulers”, we reported:
Destination Yisra’el – “When we look at this region, the affiliations between money and power, and the distain for the basic civil rights of their citizens, we wonder for it is all based around the greed of oil and gas. Consider that fact that Egypt is not truly an oil producing country, but consider also how President Hosni Mubarak is worth more than all the oil tycoons in the Middle East, we also see the largess of rubbing shoulders with America and Mubarak’s strong affiliation with the CIA. Here is a list of the richest royal and rulers of the world, Mubarak’s name was at the top of the list:
The Richest Royalty in the Middle East
President of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak estimated worth is between $40 - 70 Billion
President of UAE and hereditary ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayad Al Nahuyan estimated worth is $23 Billion
Sultan of Brunei, Haji Hassanal Bolkiah estimated worth is $20 Billion
King of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah estimated worth is $21 Billion
Ruler of United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Kalifaskin Zayed Al Nahyan estimated worth is $20 Billion
Ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum estimate worth is $16 Billion
King of Morocco, King Mohammed IV estimated worth is $2 Billion
Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamed Bin Khalifa Al Thani estimated worth is $2 Billion
Imam of the Nizari Muslims of the Shia faith, Prince Karin Al Husseini (Aga Khan) estimated worth is $1 Billion
Sultan of Oman, Qaboos Bin Said is worth $1.1 Billion
Emir of Kuwait - Sheikh Sabah Al-Sabah is worth $500 Million
King of Jordan, King Abdullah II estimated worth not available
King of Bahrain, Sheikh Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa estimated worth not available
At the end of days, the prophets warn us that the catastrophes in which we will witness will resemble the days when the Children of Israel were taken from the land of their oppression, Egypt, and in the Great Exodus were returned to the land of their forefathers. So we are reminded of this fact when in the districts surrounding Cairo, including Moqatam and New Cairo were warned of a “locust plague” that would soon reach Cairo.
The locusts were earlier sighted along the Red Sea Coastline, in Upper Egypt when they reached Egypt’s Red Sea city of Zafarana, 200 kilometers south of Cairo. Then they were later sighted at the Egyptian city of Qena, where the locusts raided over three villages in the region.
There were earlier reports of a “plague of locusts,” which some experts said could hit the Egypt’s Nile Delta. After the rainy winter, during the month of January, swarms of the insects, hatching in Sudan to the south and west, were spotted along the Red Sea coastline at where the south-eastern border of Egypt meets the north-eastern of Sudan where the winter breeding regions along the Red Sea coastal plains threaten Egyptian crops to the north and Eritrea and Saudi Arabia to the east. It was only 11 years ago in 2004, that the land of Egypt witnessed one of its most serious locust infestations in recent history. During that year, Egyptian suffered extensive crop damage in 15 out of the country’s 27 governorates.
At the time, the Land Centre for Human Rights, a local NGO devoted to agriculture issues, reported that 38 percent of the nation’s crops had been damaged as a direct result of the arrival of locusts. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), one ton of locusts eat the same amount of food in a single day as around 2,500 people.
Swarms of 30 Million Locust hit Cairo Egypt in 2013
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As if we hadn't already seen enough Biblical events occurring the world this year, a plague of over 30 million locusts swarming over Egypt's cities and farms just three weeks before Passover begins should give us pause for reflection. We realize that locust migration swarms are part of the Middle Eastern way of life and occur in small areas every year.
Yet, we realize that the winter rains that have blessed the Nation of Israel and brought her out of a drought of two decades, can also become the finger of judgment upon the Islamic nations that refuse to accept that the G-d of Israel is the G-d of Creation and the ruler of the Universe. Noe only is He the Creator G-d but also personally involved in the redemption of His people, the Jews of the House of Judah and the Lost Ten Tribes of the House of Israel.
What we are seeing may not be an apocalyptic event but it could be a mini-drama of a prophetic course of events that will eventually bring to the end the scattering of G-d’s chosen people to the nations of the world. First to be exiled were the Lost Ten Tribes of the House of Israel who were cast out of Samaria and sent into exile by the Assyrians in the 7th century BCE. Later came the scattering of the Jewish people when the Jewish culture in the 1st century Temple of Herod Era descended into the 49th Level of Tuma (Degradation) and were then scattered into the nations of the world in the 1st century CE by the Romans.
No, we cannot put our apocalyptic and catastrophic fears to rest. What the G-d of Israel has promised, will occur and take place. If you believe that the “time of the end” is here, then the world as we know it to be will be forever changed by the judgments of G-d whether we want to deny that fact or not.
The
Middle Eastern Locust Plague
As the migration of locust moved from the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia, as reported by the in the Egyptian news by the Egyptian Agricultural Minister Salah Abdel Moamen as he explained the situation to the country in a calmly worded statement.
Egyptian Agricultural Minister Salah Abdel Moamen – “The current inspection teams at areas targeted by locusts did not witness swarms damaging a single inch of crop…the locusts are sexually immature and do not depend on plants for energy since they mainly rely on fat stores.”
Yet, the Egyptian officials did not expect that the locusts would affect the Egyptian capital in Cairo to the north, but the swarms have now arrived at the capital that lies just south of the traditional home of the Children of Israel in the land of Goshen in the Egyptian Delta just to the north.
Understanding that the Locust plagues are unpredictable, and that which is unexpected can occur. Scientists have predicted that plagues such as this could become part of the “global warming” effect upon the desert regions of the Middle East. Yet, recent scientific studies dispute that locust are associated with warm wet regional changes but rather could also be part of cooler wet weather climatic changes.
That said, these plagues can be unpredictable. Egyptian officials didn't expect the plague to pass by the country's capital, until Sunday, March 3, 2013 when the locusts unexpectedly arrived in Cairo. The government denied reports that the locusts had started devastating crops as well as a report from United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) that the Ministry of Agriculture cleared 11,000 hectares of land in an attempt to save the harvest.
2013 Locust Plague in Southern Israel
As the UN officials reported, when the locust get hungry, a one-ton hoard of locusts can eat the same amount of food in one day as 2,500 humans. The memory in Egypt understands this fact also for less than a decade ago, a plague of locusts that spread nearly 40 miles wide swept over Egypt. They damaged a majority of the crops in the regional farms at that time. Conflicting reports aside, Moamen insisted that the government had everything under control. As he mentioned:
Egyptian Agricultural Minister Salah Abdel Moamen – “Egyptian armed forces and the border guards are attempting to fight the swarm with the means at their disposal. I ask the families living in the locust-plagued areas not to burn tires. This does not chase away the locusts, but only causes damage and could ignite large scale fires that would cost in lives.”
Is it not amazing that just as the locust hordes have descended upon Cairo, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi who recently granted himself unlimited dictatorial powers to “protect” Egypt in late November 2012 that included the power to legislate without judicial oversight or any official review of his acts, were now confronted with new massive demonstrations called the 2012 Egyptian protests.
With the Plagues of Locust now hitting the Egyptian news, riots were erupting again across Egypt as new brutality charges were made against the Morsi government. At the same time, one Egyptian protest group signed up Morsi to go up into space on the contest started by Axe, a brand of grooming products for men who teamed up with US astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon during NASA's Apollo 11 mission in 1969 and promised to sent 22 contestants to “the edge of space and back aboard a private spaceship.”
As Israel Hayom reported on March 5, 2013, next door to Egypt in the State of Israel, the residents on the Red Sea Israeli port city of Eilat were witness to the flying hordes of locusts swarming as far north as the city of Holon. As one greenhouse farmer, Moshav Kmehin exclaimed;
Moshav Kmehin - “I was in the fields, tending to my greenhouse, when I saw thousands of insects flying at the greenhouses. It's not so scary on a personal level, but I'm concerned as a farmer because locusts specialize in destroying crops.”
Regional farmers in Southern Israel near the town of Nitzana nearby to the Egyptian border continued to report swarms of locusts all the way up to the Israeli towns of Kmehim and the biblical Kadesh Barnea. With the local trade winds pushing the locust swarm eastwards from Egypt and northward upwards into Israel, the warning went out from Amir Ayali, heading the Tel Aviv University zoology department stating on TV:
Amir Ayali – “We can prevent the locusts from destroying our farmlands, but we have to act fast."
The regional farmers were advised by the Ramat Hanegev Regional Council to seal up their green houses and hoophouses as the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization warned the Agriculture Ministry that locust swarms were heading to Israel. The Agriculture Ministry, Miriam Freund, the director of the Plant Protection and Inspections Services announced that the State of Israel was already on “High Locust Alert” as their regional Israeli aerial and ground pest control systems were alerted and put on emergency stand-by.
According to Freund, it voracious appetite of 30 million locusts were to swarm into Israel while in their hungry adult stage, the State of Israel crop losses would amount to 100 million shekels ($27 million) in agricultural damages. Such an event has not been seen since November, 2004.
The question we ask, are we seeing the prelude of catastrophes of biblical proportion beginning to surround the Israeli region in the Middle East. Will a locust catastrophe in Egypt unseat the well laid plans of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to wrest complete control of that nation and create a Muslim Caliphate in Egypt? Are we rather seeing the finger of the L-rd stirring again the nations of the world, as He watches the plotting of the nations against the anointed ones in Israel as the Psalmist proclaimed:
Psalms 2:1-5 - “Why do nations gather, and regimes talk in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the princes conspire secretly against HaShem and against His anointed: “Let us cut their cords and let us cast off their ropes from ourselves. He Who site in heaven will laugh, the L-rd will mock them. Then he will speak to them in His anger, and in His wrath He will terrify them.”
Are witnessing today, the realigning of the nations in the Middle East instead, to become nations that will eventually worship the G-d of Israel? As we watched mini-vignettes of prophetic fulfillment swarming around our lives, let us remember this text gives us a final picture of what the region of the Middle East from the lands of Ancient Assyria to Ancient Egypt will be transformed into:
Isaiah 19:23 – “On that day there will be a road from Egypt to Assyria; Assyrian will come into Egypt and Egyptian into Assyria, and Egypt will serve Hashem with Assyria. On that day Israel will be the third party with Egypt and with Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the land, for Hashem, Master of Legions will bless them saying, ‘Blessed is My people, Egypt; and the work of My hands, Assyria; and My heritage, Israel.’”
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If you have wondered the difference between the Biblical concepts of Torah’s true “Culture of Life” as compared to a “Culture of Death”, you might desire to learn of the Biblical portrayals on what is and may be happening in your near future.
This Biblical portrayal includes Prophecies that the Lost Tribes of the House of Israel are about to return to the Land of their Biblical Inheritance. This is Divine Destiny in living reality as the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel return to their Homelands first in Shomron (Samaria), Israel. If you want to learn more, Contact “Kol Ha Tor Vision”, the Voice of the Turtledove.
Here is a joint vision shared by Orthodox Jews and 10-Tribers bringing awareness of the imminent fulfillment of the Biblical Prophecies regarding the Redemption of all Israel (12 Tribes Re-conciled and Re-United). This super Event of all Times will entail Establishing the Shomron (the Ancient Bible Heartland of the Patriarchs) and the Judean Wilderness as part of the Land of Israel, and preparing the “Land” for the Return of the Lost Tribes of the House of Israel and then the Redemption of All Israel.
For inquiries about Kol Ha Tor Vision for the Lost Tribes of Israel, Visit – “Shomron Lives!”, a Spiritual Retreat and Guest House in Samaria.