At least four species of Locust are mentioned in the Scriptures, one of them being the beetle of the Authorized Version; and it is probable that one or two words which are differently rendered in the Authorized Version are either names of different species of Locusts, or are synonyms for the same species.
We will first take the different Hebrew words which are translated as "Locust," and then proceed to the description of the insects themselves.
The first of those words is arbeh, about the rendering of which there is no doubt whatever. It occurs many times in the Scriptures, and, even if its signification were doubtful, the context would be sufficient to denote the proper rendering of the word. Take, for example, the account in Exod. x. of the threatened plague of Locusts. Nothing can be more terse and graphic than the description of the Arbeh, its vast multitudes, its sudden arrival, and its destructive power.
In Judges vi. 5 the word is translated as "grasshopper." "For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers for multitude; for both they and their camels were without number: and they entered into the land to destroy it." Translating the word rightly as "Locust," we see the real force of this passage. Grasshoppers may inhabit a spot, and do no great harm, but the Locusts invade whole districts, coming like destructive armies upon it, and causing utter destruction as long as they remain.
In 1 Kings viii. 37, Solomon speaks of the presence of the Arbeh among the most terrible calamities that can befall a country, and classes it with famine, drought, pestilence, and siege. In Prov. xxx. 27 the same writer remarks on the curious fact that these creatures are gregarious and migratory, and yet have no leader, as is mostly the case with gregarious animals. "The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by hands."
Allusion is made to the vast number of the Arbeh in Jer. xlvi.: "They shall cut down her forest, saith the Lord, though it cannot be searched; because they are more than the grasshoppers, and are innumerable." The voracity of the Arbeh is mentioned in Joel i. 4 and ii. 25. These are but a few passages selected out of the many in which the Arbeh is mentioned, in order to show how completely the word corresponds with the character of the Locust. The word is derived from a Hebrew root signifying multitudes, and is therefore appropriately used for these insects, which singly are so feeble, and collectively are so terrible.
Next comes the word chagab, which evidently signifies some migratory and gregarious Locust, though we cannot say precisely to which species it refers. The word is mostly translated as "grasshopper," and, from the context of several passages, it seems to have been less in size than the Arbeh, inasmuch as it is used as a metaphor to express smallness. See, for example, Numb. xiii. 31-33, where is recorded the false report of the spies whom Moses sent to inspect the land. "The men that went up said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we.
"And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature.
"And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers" (chagabim), "and so we were in their sight."
A similar metaphor is employed by the Prophet Isaiah: "It is He that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers" (xl. 22). And in Eccles. xii. 5 extreme weakness is forcibly indicated by the words, "the grasshopper" (chagab) "shall be a burden."