The Torah portion names Bo and Beshalach re-appear in the Book of Revelation.  The portions prophesy of those who will come and those who will be sent.  Without knowing the portions, one is in the dark as to who will come and who will be sent. "Bo" means "Come!"  Such as, "Then I saw when the Lamb broke one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying as with a voice of thunder, 'Come.'"

In portion Bo, Moses tells Pharaoh:

 

For if you refuse to let My people go, behold, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your territory. They shall cover the surface ( eye) of the land, so that no one will be able to see the land. (Ex 10:4-5)

 

The locusts have an important job, but few students of Scripture know the scope of it.  Without clarity on how locusts work as a plague, the supernatural bugs of the Abyss in John's Revelation lose their full impact on the reader.  John tries to convey what he sees flying out of Abaddon, but because it is a supernatural swarm of beasts, he uses a variety of comparisons.  If we've diligently studied the Torah portions, then the symbolism and contexts do not fly right by us, nor should we feel their sting.

 

The variety of beasts John describes includes horses, riders, scorpions, locusts, and serpents. If the reader has developed the layers of prophecy in the Torah, then each of these creatures leave a clear picture of the methods of judgment.  The Torah portions Bo and Beshalach are fundamental to discerning Abaddon's bugs. 

 

As an overview, here are the steps one can always assign to this creature(s), which is prophesied by the plague of locusts:

 

1.  they blind, i.e., confuse the eye with darkness, whether through darkness or smoke

2.  they torment the victim for a specified season, a judgment made worse and possible because of the first work of blindness and confusion

3. they kill, or "cut off fruit," which includes destroying the firstborn, the extension into the next generation; the fruit is the fruit of wickedness

 

Although these steps are associated with the locust, there is also an association with horses and chariots, an association made in the Song of the Sea, which is also the Abyss, and in John's description of the bugs of the Abyss.  The sea is sometimes a metaphor for the Abyss, such as in the Book of Jonah. 

 This week is Shabbat Shira, the Shabbat that marks the Song of the Sea and conquering the king of the Abyss, Abaddon.  

 

I will sing unto the LORD, for He has triumphed gloriously, the horse and rider thrown into the sea.

 

Long before the last plague on Egypt, Pharaoh's servants recognized what Pharaoh didn't:  Egypt was already destroyed,  avdah.  After the threat of the plague of locusts, the servants tell Pharaoh:

 

How long will this man be a snare to us? Let the men go, that they may serve the LORD their God. Do you not realize that Egypt is destroyed ( avdah)? (Ex 10:7)

 

Egypt represents Abaddon, the permanent construct of  avdah.  Sheol. The Pit.  The Abyss.  Death. Death has surrounded humankind since the first couple fell from the circling rivers of the Garden of Eden. Through salvation at the Sea, the Abyss, Israel arises from the realm of death.

 

What follows the threat of locusts is a compromise on Pharaoh's part. He says let only the men go, but not the children. While this is the minimum requirement for a festival sacrifice, the goal was for all to celebrate. This builds tension toward the ultimate challenge: the firstborn child.  By killing the firstborn, the link between the father and  bekhor will be broken, cutting off the "name" of the fathers. The firstborn represents the son most like the father and the child most likely to execute his will in the next generation. The father and firstborn are one will.  Because Pharaoh refuses to let all the Israelites go, Moses invokes the plague of locusts, and they cover the eye of Egypt, or Abaddon, death. 

 

Blindness in Scripture represents spiritual confusion.  For instance, Saul was struck blind on the road to Damascus, which represented his spiritual confusion.  Only when he was no more confused about his direction was his sight restored to serve his master. The blindness of Sodom was spiritual confusion, and it led to their destruction because of unrepentance.  Sin must be acknowledged before sight can be restored when it is spiritual, rather than physical, blindness.  

 

For if you refuse to let My people go, behold, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your territory. They shall cover the surface of the land, so that no one will be able to see the land. (Ex 10:4-5)

 

This will be a type of blindness, a smokescreen of locusts,  arbeh.  Where they come from and how they come is significant:

 

Then the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star from heaven which had fallen to the earth; and the key of the bottomless pit was given to him. He opened the bottomless pit, and smoke went up out of the pit, like the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke of the pit. Then out of the smoke came locusts upon the earth, and power was given them, as the scorpions of the earth have power."  (Re 9:1-3)

 

They alah will arise from the abyss like the locusts  alah upon Egypt. Verse 7 says: "The appearance of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle; and on their heads appeared to be crowns like gold, and their faces were like the faces of men."  The locusts look like both horses and men dressed for battle. 

 

So Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt, and the LORD directed an east wind on the land all that day and all that night; and when it was morning, the east wind brought the locusts. The locusts came up over all the land of Egypt and settled in all the territory of Egypt; they were very numerous. There had never been so many locusts, nor would there be so many again. For they covered the surface of the whole land, so that the land was darkened; and they ate every plant of the land and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left. Thus nothing green was left on tree or plant of the field through all the land of Egypt. Then Pharaoh hurriedly called for Moses and Aaron, and he said, "I have sinned against the LORD your God and against you.  Now therefore, please forgive my sin only this once, and make supplication to the LORD your God, that He would only remove this death from me." He went out from Pharaoh and made supplication to the LORD. So the LORD shifted the wind to a very strong west wind which took up the locusts and drove them into the Red Sea; not one locust was left in all the territory of Egypt. (Ex 10:16-19)

 

The locusts were forced in by an east spirit, ruach, or wind.  Likewise, in Revelation 16:12: "The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river, the Euphrates; and its water was dried up, so that the way would be prepared for the kings from the east."

 

These kings are armies prepared for battle. What draws them in is something prepared specifically for this purpose in Re 9:14: "...one saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, 'Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.'"

 

Locusts = armies

 

"David also defeated Hadadezer king of Zobah as far as Hamath, as he went to establish his rule to the Euphrates River." (1 Ch 18:3)

 

A midrash says that David dried up the Euphrates in order to win a battle and establish his eastern-most territory.  Scripture says David's war extended his territory to the Euphrates, conquering the eastern kings such as Zobah.  The locusts of Egypt "ascended."  They came up from somewhere in the east...perhaps the Euphrates?  The brook of Egypt and the Euphrates define the millennial boundaries of Israel.

 

Where the locusts are blown gives further information.   A very strong west spirit ( ruach) drove them into the Sea of Reeds ( Yamah Suf).

 

The swarm was extremely numerous, like the bugs of the Abyss. It ate both the tree and the fruit. Yam means "sea," but it also means "west."  A very strong west ruach (spirit) drove them into the western sea. In the locust swarm, Pharaoh and his army's deaths in the Reed Sea are prophesied. His advisors had already warned him that Egypt was destroyed before the swarm was unleashed from the east. When he asks Moses to remove the swarm, Pharaoh says something odd:  "...please forgive my sin only this once, and make supplication to the LORD your God, that He would only remove this death from me."

 

Only THIS death? Pharaoh was unable to foresee that the locust swarm was only the precursor to his second death with them, at the Yam Suf.

 

Joel Two prophesies of a similar locust swarm made even larger than the arbeh alone.  Its army is made up of additional battalions:

 

Then I will make up to you for the years that the swarming (arbeh) locust has eaten, the creeping locust (yelek), the stripping locust (chasil) and the gnawing locust (gazam), My great army which I sent among you. (Joel 2:2)

 

While Pharaoh suffered one swarm, arbeh, which was larger than any other single swarm in history, a larger judgment is described as four swarms, representing different types of destroying bugs, which will be larger than any other multi-swarm in history.  Big.  Bigger.  Perhaps these four swarms are loosed by the four angels, or "sent ones" bound at the Euphrates for this specific task.  The fiery armies of these swarms in Joel are described exactly as the smoky, fiery one in Revelation that can consume all the green things just like the Egyptian swarm:

 

A fire consumes before them and behind them a flame burns. The land is like the garden of Eden before them but a desolate wilderness behind them, and nothing at all escapes them. Their appearance is like the appearance of horses; and like war horses, so they run. With a noise as of chariots** they leap on the tops of the mountains, like the crackling of a flame of fire consuming the stubble, like a mighty people arranged for battle. Before them the people are in anguish; (Joel 2:3-6)

 

After locusts came darkness. Joel prophesies also of days of darkness and gloom.  After the darkness of the locusts comes a palpable darkness for three days. No one in darkness could move from his or her "place."  This means that while the Israelites moved freely and were not confused, the Egyptians who lived in "death" were stuck in whatever posture the darkness of death found them.  There was no up, down, right, or left.  Perhaps no repentance?  Nothing added, nothing taken away.  Just frozen in place.  

 

Note the context of harsh discipline to scorpions:

 

He led you through the great and terrible wilderness, [with its] fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water; He brought water for you out of the rock of flint. (Dt 8:15)

 

Whereas my father loaded you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke; my father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions. (1 Ki 12:11)

 

Scorpions are an instrument of discipline against rebellion.  They work in tandem with seraphim, the fiery serpents.  This is why the army-bugs of the Abyss are described not just as horses with serpent-tails, but with the power of scorpions.  Their weapons are words, for their power is in their mouths. Ezekiel says the righteous are not to fear them, even if they sit on them!  

 

And you, son of man, neither fear them nor fear their words, though thistles and thorns are with you and you sit on scorpions; neither fear their words nor be dismayed at their presence, for they are a rebellious house. (Eze 2:6)

 

An Israeli Yellow Scorpion is nicknamed the "Deathstalker," for its sting is particularly painful, but not usually lethal.  For this reason, John prophesies that those stung by the battle-horses of the Abyss will seek death, but they will not find it.  It is a living torment prepared by the confusion of the serpent's deceiving words. The scorpion is nocturnal, and its torment is darkness.  This is how the horse-army has power as the "scorpion has power." 

If there is no repentance after confusion and torment, then cutting of the fruit of the firstborn, destruction, is the final step in battle-bug horses' judgment.  Yeshua's faithful, however, have nothing to fear, for they obey him and the Word of Truth:

 

Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you. (Lk 10:19)

 

Likewise, the Talmud explains that the vaccine against the battle-bug is words of prayer:

 

R. Johanan further said in the name of R. Simeon b. Yohai: If a man has a fixed place for his prayer, his enemies succumb to him. For it is said: And I will appoint a place for My people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in their own place, and be disquieted no more; neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them any more as at the first. (2 Sa 7:10) R. Huna pointed to a contradiction. [Here] it is written: 'To afflict them', and [elsewhere]: To exterminate them? (1 Ch 17:9) [The answer is]: first to afflict them and then to exterminate them. (Talmud Berakhot 7b)  

 

The faithful of Yeshua are planted and dwell in Light in their "place," but the three steps of discipline on the wicked are restated: 

 

1. disquiet (confusion) 

2. affliction  

3. extermination

 

The supernatural creature does have a name, and it is located in Exodus 23:28. It is a tzira. Rashi comments to the passage:  

 

It is taught in a baraita (Tosefta 11:10): The hornet [tzira] did not cross the Jordan with them. The Gemara asks: And did it not? But isn't it written: 'And I will send the hornet before you, which shall drive out the Hivites, and the Canaanites.'? (Ex 23:28)

 

Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish says: The hornet stood on the banks of the Jordan and threw its venom at the inhabitants of the land and it blinded their eyes from above and castrated them from below, as it is stated: 'Yet I destroyed the Amorites before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and they were strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed their fruit from above, and their roots from beneath.' (Amos 2:9).

 

The tzira:

 

1. blinds with venom like a serpent  

2. it affects reproduction by destroying their fruit of wickedness above, tormenting them, and 

3. it cuts off the root below, like the death of the firstborn, erasing their ability to pass on wickedness to the next generation

 

The victims are likened to trees, offering another symbol of human destruction used in Revelation. The sage Rashi comments on the tzira in his analysis of Deuteronomy 7:20, which reads in the Artscroll version:

 

Also the tzira will HASHEM, your God, send among them, until the survivors and hidden ones perish before you.

 

Rashi writes that it is a species of flying insect like a locust that would "shoot bile at them and make them impotent and blind their eyes wherever they would hide." The details about the tzira blinding (above) and castrating (below) correspond with the tzira's ability to blind with its sting like scorpions (Rashi to Bechorot 7b, 2009, p. 86).  

 

Although Ezekiel encourages the faithful not to fear the scorpions, he does have to eat a little book like John does in Revelation.  The difference in the two prophecies is that Ezekiel prophesies to Israel in exile. John prophecies to many nations, tribes, and tongues. The call to righteousness has expanded from Israel to the nations. Other translations use "hornet" instead of "locust" to describe the tzira:

 

Rav Pappa said: There were two hornets. One was the hornet of Moses, which helped conquer the eastern side of the Jordan [ outside of Israel], and one was the hornet of Joshua. The hornet of Moses did not cross the Jordan, but the hornet of Joshua did cross. (p. 86 Rashi to Bechorot 7b & #9)

 

So the discipline of Israel in Ezekiel becomes the discipline of the nations in Revelation. Same kind of horse-bugs, but two territories.  And same goal: bring humankind to repentance so that they may escape Abaddon.  Let the wicked taste the torment of death so that they will repent and not suffer the torment of Pharaoh's second death.  

 

Of the giants in the Land, Moses was told, "no man will stand up against you until you have destroyed them..." It has context in the words of the wicked who cannot escape their blindness and torment:

 

Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, 'Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?' (Re 6:15-17)

 

This fulfills the prophecy through Moses: "Also the tzira will HASHEM, your God, send among them, until the survivors and hidden ones perish before you."   This Egyptian re-visitation has no destroying power over righteous Israel, for Moses reminds them in Deuteronomy 20:1:

 

When you go out to battle against your enemy, and you see horse and chariot - a people more numerous than you-you shall not fear them, for HASHEM, your God, is with you, Who brought you up from the land of Egypt. (Artscroll)

 

Yes, the bugs of the Abyss are a 200-million-creature army, and they serve the king of Abaddon, but even the king of Abaddon must obey the Holy One of Israel who will dispatch the swarms to discipline the earth.  The number of chariots and horses were under the control of one horse and chariot, the King of the Abyss, yet in the same way the King of the Abyss was subdued at the Reed Sea and returned to Abaddon, so the righteous are saved by the Holy One of Israel in any battle. This is why we recount the Exodus every Passover as though we ourselves were there, for we were.  And we are. And we will be.

 

The saints of Adonai stand still and await the destruction of "Egypt" with the breaking of the Seventh Seal. "You will never see them again," says Moses, prophesying of the final destruction of the Destroyer from Abaddon whose coming is like the sounds of horses and chariots prepared for battle. The clue in the recall of the horses of Egypt in Deuteronomy 17:16.

 

All the soldiers, chariots, and horses that chased Israel boil down to one king, Abaddon, which means Destroyer. There have been many horses and chariots over the millennia, but their king Abaddon is Death, "the horse and his rider thrown into the sea":

 

Then Moses and the sons of Israel sang this song to the LORD, and said, 'I will sing to the LORD, for He is highly exalted; the horse [ sus, singular] and its rider [ rokvo, singular] He has hurled into the sea.' (Ex 15:1)

 

Miriam the prophetess, Aaron's sister, took the timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dancing. Miriam answered them, 'Sing to the LORD, for He is highly exalted; the horse [ sus, singular] and his rider [ rokvo, singular] He has hurled into the sea.' (Ex 15:20-21)

 

So as you see more and more people fall into confusion and torment, remember this:

 

You shall therefore love the LORD your God, and always keep His charge, His statutes, His ordinances, and His commandments.  Know this day that I am not speaking with your sons who have not known and who have not seen the discipline of the LORD your God-His greatness, His mighty hand and His outstretched arm, and His signs and His works which He did in the midst of Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to all his land; and what He did to Egypt's army, to its horses and its chariots, when He made the water of the Red Sea to engulf them while they were pursuing you, and the LORD completely destroyed them; and what He did to you in the wilderness until you came to this place." (Dt 11:1-5)

 

This place.  Israel.  The Garden.  A place of safety to which the enemy cannot cross.

 The Father in Heaven is destroying our Egypts so that we will go to the wilderness to serve our Elohim, for we can surely say that neither Pharaoh nor Egypt knows our Elohim. In context, Moses and Aaron asked to take the Israelites a three-days' journey to celebrate a chag, which usually refers to Passover, Shavuot, or Sukkot.  Pharaoh's servants identify this celebration to him as an act of AVD, worship, a homonym to avdah, destruction.  Moses and Aaron had told Pharaoh that if they did not go, then Adonai would send a pestilence upon the Hebrews, not the Egyptians! 

 

So run to the feasts of the Holy One in the wilderness!  Bo!  

 

The Spirit and the bride say, " Come." And let the one who hears say, " Come." And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.

BO! BO! BO!  

PASSOVER!  SHAVUOT!  SUKKOT!

 

So come!  If you come, then those instruments of discipline who are "sent" have no power over you.  Instead, you will be sent to warn the Egyptians and Babylonians of the world.  You will not be confused.  You will not be tormented.  Your good fruit will endure in the Garden.

 

Until then, the enemy will try to work on you by imitating Divine judgment.  The king of Abaddon tries to confuse you, torment you, and destroy your root and fruit.  The Word of Life gives clarity, and it reveals the true King of Kings, who is King even over the king of Death.  You know that the fruit of the Spirit is the fruit of the Bride, who says, "Bo!"  As the world grows darker, your light will increase.  Be faithful until death.  Be faithful until He comes.  Those chariots that chase you are simply being lured into a snare for their own destruction...again.  The chariots of Israel and Heaven that surround you are much greater than the horsemen of the Abyss.  Do not fear them.  Do not fear their words.  

 

Stand still.  Just watch. The Day That is All Shabbat is almost here.

 

When the Lamb broke the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. (Re 8:1)