Chrysostom, Theophylact, and others, either adopt or quote the same interpretation, as may be seen by referring to Suicer, Thes. Eccl., under the word Ἀκρίς.
But in the absence of any direct proof that the word was ever used in this sense, I do not think it safe to adopt interpretations which possibly rested only on some tradition.
There is positive proof that locusts were eaten by some people. In Lev. xi. 22. we have,
"These of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind."
In this passage we find ἀκρίδα used by the LXX. for the Hebrew חָגַב, the last of the four kinds specified. I find in several commentators whom I have consulted, reference to Bochart's Hierozoicon, ii. 4. 7., but as I have not the book by me, I must be content with referring your correspondent to it; and if he will look at the commentaries of Elsner and Kuinoel, and Schleusner's Lexicon, he will find references to so many authors in confirmation of the fact in question, that I think he will not disagree with me in concluding that where the balance of learned opinion, as well as of evidence, is so great in favour of one interpretation, we ought not rashly to take up another, however intelligent the party may be by whom it was suggested.
I have just looked into Wolfius on the New Testament, and there find a list of writers who have adopted the interpretations of the Father above mentioned, and also a host of others who defend the received explanation. If they should be within the reach of Βορέας (as most of them are not in mine), he will be able to balance their arguments for himself.
ב.
L—— Rectory, Somerset.
Perhaps the following may be useful to your correspondent Βορέας on the word ἀκρίδες, St. Matt. iii. 4.
Lev. xi. 22., we have an enumeration of the various kinds of locusts known to the Jews, viz. the locust proper, the bald locust, beetle, grasshopper; rendered in the Vulgate respectively, bruchus, attacus, ophiomachus, locusta, the latter by the Septuagint, ἀκρίδες. The Hebrew אַרְבֶּה, the locust proper, from רָבָה, to multiply, is used chiefly for the ravaging locust, as Exod. x. 12., probably a larger kind; while חָגַב, which is translated grasshopper in our version above, Vulg. locusta, Sept. ἀκρίδες, rendered by Fuerstius (Heb. Conc.) locusta gregaria, is mostly used as implying diminutiveness, as Numbers, xiii. 33., and but once as a devouring insect, 2 Chro. vii. 13. It is translated indiscriminately, in our version, locust and grasshopper; all these were edible and permitted to the Jews. Singularly enough, there is one passage in which this word חָגַב is used, viz. Eccl. xii. 5., in which it is doubted by some whether it may not mean a vegetable; but this is not the opinion of the best authorities. The observation of Grotius, by-the-bye, on the place is extremely curious, differing from all the other commentators.