Bible Commentary

Revelation 9:8

Revelation 9:8

John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible · John Gill (1697–1771) · Public Domain

And they had hair, as the hair of women,.... Some locusts have smooth, others hairy heads : this fitly points at the Arabians or Saracens, who, as Pliny says , used to wear long hair without cutting it, and attired as women, and have their names also from women: they were called Hagarenes, from Hagar, Abraham's handmaid, by whom he had Ishmael, the father of these people; afterwards they took the name of Saracens, from Sarah, the wife of Abraham, whose posterity they would be thought to be; though they may have the latter name, either from qro, to "rob" and "steal", with the Arabians, or from the same word, as it signifies to "comb", from the combing and plaiting: of their hair.

This may also point at the effeminacy of the western locusts, the monks and friars, who dress more like women than men; and many of them claim the virgin Mary for their patroness; and may in general design the votaries of the church of Rome, who are under the vow of a monastic life, as those among the Jews, under a Nazarite's vow, wore long hair.

And their teeth were as [the teeth] of lions; so in Joe 1:6; which may denote the ravages and devastations of the Saracens in the empire, robbing, pillaging, and destroying all they met with; and is applicable enough to the devouring jaws of the Romish clergy, their plundering the estates of men, their cruelties and barbarities exercised by their Inquisition, &c.

Pliny says , that locusts will gnaw the doors of houses. Gloss. in T. Bab. Cholin. fol. 65. 1. Hist. Nat. l. 6. c. 28. L. 11. c.

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