Answer: They store up / prepare their food in the summer.
Reference: Proverbs 30:25
Insight: Wisdom here is shown through foresight rather than strength.
Bible Stumpers
Insects in the Bible
Locusts aren't the only insects in the Bible.
Scripture uses even the smallest creatures to teach lessons about wisdom, judgment, faith, and human nature. Some appear in famous stories. Others are easy to overlook.
So, how well do you know the insects of the Bible?
Below are 10 questions about insects in Scripture. How many can you answer before checking?
1. Proverbs lists four small creatures that are "exceedingly wise." The ant is described as "a people not strong" (or "creatures of little strength"). What do they do, despite their lack of strength, that earns them this distinction?
2. When Samson returned to the lion he had previously killed, he found honey and shared some of it with his parents. What important detail did he deliberately not tell them?
Answer: He did not tell them that the honey came from the lion's carcass.
Reference: Judges 14:8-9
Insight: That concealed source became the basis of the riddle he later posed at his wedding feast.
3. Ecclesiastes compares a little folly to dead flies in a perfumer's ointment. What do the flies cause the ointment to do?
Answer: They make it give off a foul odor (stink and ferment).
Reference: Ecclesiastes 10:1
Insight: A small folly can outweigh a great reputation for wisdom and honor.
4. After spying out Canaan, the Israelites reported that they felt like grasshoppers next to the Nephilim. According to their report, who else saw them that way?
Answer: The Nephilim themselves: "and so we were in their sight."
Reference: Numbers 13:33
Insight: The spies reported not only their own fear but claimed to know how their enemies saw them, a perception the text presents as their report, not verified fact.
5. God reminded Israel that something other than their own weapons had gone before them in battle. By what were the two kings of the Amorites driven out (hint: it wasn't by Israel's sword or bow)?
Answer: The hornet.
Reference: Joshua 24:12
Insight: The Hebrew word tsirĘżah can be taken literally as a hornet (or swarm of hornets) or figuratively as the terror God sent ahead of Israel. Either way, the point is clear: the victory came from God's intervention, not Israel's military strength.
6. Joel describes four successive waves of devastation sweeping the land. What happened to the crop that the palmerworm left behind?
Answer: The locust ate it.
Reference: Joel 1:4
Insight: Joel pictures total, stage-by-stage ruin as successive waves of destroyers consume what the previous wave left behind.
7. The locusts in Revelation behave nothing like ordinary locusts. What were they specifically forbidden to harm?
Answer: The grass of the earth, any green thing, and any tree.
Reference: Revelation 9:4
Insight: Reversing a normal plague, they spare the vegetation and instead torment the people who lack God's seal.
8. Jesus charged the Pharisees with "straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel." What common practice would have made Jesus' image immediately recognizable to His audience?
Answer: Straining wine or drink through cloth to filter out a tiny gnat while (figuratively) gulping down a camel.
Reference: Matthew 23:24
Insight: Both gnat and camel were ceremonially unclean, so the contrast runs from the smallest unclean creature to one of the largest. Jesus exposed obsession with trivial scruples while neglecting weightier matters of the law.
9. Isaiah foretold a day when the Lord would whistle for two creatures to summon foreign powers against Judah. One was a bee from Assyria. What was the other?
Answer: A fly from Egypt.
Reference: Isaiah 7:18
Insight: The fly represented Egypt and the bee represented Assyria. God would summon both nations at His command, using foreign powers as instruments of judgment against Judah.
10. Under the Law of Moses, most winged insects were considered unclean, yet John the Baptist's diet included locusts and wild honey. Why could John eat locusts without violating the Law?
Answer: Because locusts were among the few winged insects specifically permitted as food under the Law of Moses.
Reference: Matthew 3:4; Leviticus 11:21-22
Insight: While most flying insects were unclean, Leviticus expressly allowed locusts, bald locusts, crickets, and grasshoppers to be eaten.
Sometimes the Bible's smallest creatures carry its biggest lessons. Which question surprised you most?
