Exodus 10:12-15

"And Jehovah said unto Moses, Stretch out thy hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, they they may come up upon the land of Egypt, and eat every herb of the land, even all that the hail hath left. And Moses stretched forth his rod over the land of Egypt, and Jehovah brought an east wind upon the land all that day, and all the night; and when it was morning, the east wind brought the locusts. And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt; very grievous were they; before them there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such. For they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left: and there remained not any green thing, either tree or herb of the field, through all the land of Egypt."

"Stretch out thy hand ... Moses stretched forth his rod ..." As should be expected, some shriek "contradiction" here, but, of course, as God had already commanded Moses, the rod was his instrument, and the stretching out of Moses' hand naturally included the instrument held in his hand. Another troublesome point in this paragraph regards "face of the whole earth" (Exodus 10:15), which is merely a metaphor (hyperbole) for Egypt. The extent of the devastation is specifically given in the final clause, "through all the land of Egypt"; and, also the land of the Hebrews (Goshen) was exempted.

"And Jehovah brought an east wind ..." Locusts do not normally appear in Egypt, the climatic conditions being unfavorable for it, and thus it was necessary for God to bring them into Egypt from a great distance. If the east wind was at 25 m.p.h., a distance of some 600 miles would have been traversed in the 24-hour period. Two things of great significance are visible here. The wind began at once with the stretching out of Moses' rod, indicating the certainty of the developing plague, and the vast distance from which the locusts came showed that Jehovah's power was by no means restricted to Egypt, but that it reached over the whole world. One may wonder if these facts were discerned by Pharaoh. This capacity of vast locust swarms to travel long distances on the wind is the basis for the designation given to them in the East, "The Teeth of the Wind!"[19]

Harford pointed out that the end of locust plagues also generally turns on the wind. "In 1865, near Jaffa, several miles were covered inches deep. When an army of locusts invades a locality, the end is usually that it is blown into the sea (as in Exodus 10:19) or the desert."[20]