In the eighth place locusts are mentioned. Some interpreters think that this sort of plague confutes the inconstancy of the human race, filled with dissent and discord. In another sense, the locusts can be interpreted as representing flittering mobility, like the pleasures of this world in a restless and skittish soul.

And the briefly recorded fact that the heart of Pharaoh experienced a kind of softening when he said, But you shall not proceed far; you shall go a three days’ journey and leave your wives behind, and whatever else he spoke when yielding before the marvelous works makes it clear that these signs had some effect even on him, though they did not entirely accomplish their object. Yet not even this would have happened if the idea held by most people about the words, I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, rightly represented what was wrought by him, that is, by God.

Divine grace has penetrated even into the life of a locust. When a locust swarms over and takes possession of some extent of land, no harm at first is done to the land. Nothing is devoured by these unfriendly invaders except when a sign from heaven has been received. A passage in Exodus provides an example of this. There the locust as minister of divine vengeance inflicts punishment for an offense against heaven. See

In the ninth plague, darkness fell. Either it means the blindness of their minds or that they should realize that the workings of the divine economy and of providence are most obscure. For God made darkness his hiding place.^[1] But they desired boldly and rashly to investigate it and, drawing one conclusion after another, fell into the dense and palpable darkness of ignorance.