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Illustration by Lauren Simkin Berke

Of Locusts and Grasshoppers

They were the eighth plague visited upon Egypt: When Pharaoh refused to free the people of Israel, Exodus tells us, Moses stretched out his staff and a wind rose from the east, blowing hard for one day until a vast swarm of locusts arrived. So great was the size of the swarm that the land appeared black, and so voracious that in a matter of moments every tree and stalk was stripped bare of fruit and grain.