“And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the canker worm, and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you. Joel 2:25 (King James Version).”

Many people when going through a time of loss, have claimed the promise in this verse as one of God’s future restoration of the things that were lost. We should. Yet there is something more deeply embedded in the Bible verse. While the loss suffered by the people of God occurred from an invasion of insects which devoured their crops, this passage also examines the spiritual devastation that can take place in our lives when sin becomes rooted in our lives.

God names four insects which are noted for their destruction of trees and other plant life – the locust; the canker worm or the inch worm which is the larva of a moth; the caterpillar which is the larva for the butterfly; and the palmerworm which is the larva for a beetle. Locusts breed rapidly to keep the species alive, as their average life span is only several months (animals.nationalgeographic.com). They are powerful fliers that travel great distances. They swarm quickly and mercilessly, consuming all green material in their path.

The word locust comes from the root word ravah which literally means to multiply into a multitude. When a multitude of difficulties come upon us, it can drown out the still small voice of God. Green represents life. Just like the locusts eat all the green and thereby devour life, when we allow sin to sprout and grow, it explodes out of control, eating away at our very existence; consuming our blessings along the way.

Further, when we consider that locusts “travel great distances,” they can also represent generational curses. The sins we commit and do not acknowledge or allow God to destroy in our lives, can quickly spiral out of control, opening the doors of destruction in our lives and progressing for generations to come.

Canker worm is the common name for several destructive caterpillars in the measuring worm family, especially the spring cankerworm and the fall canker worm. They like to eat leaves – a lot, feeding from May through mid-June and then will go back underground, and re-emerge in the fall as moths. The wingless female crawls up the trunks of fruit or shade trees to lay their eggs, and the caterpillars, which hatch about the time the tree comes into leaf, often making skeletons of the leaves of an entire orchard in a few days.

The canker worm literally licks away or laps away at your hope, coming back over and over again like the seasons. Coupled with the caterpillar, (chasel in Hebrew) it devours you with fear, paralyzing fear. The palmerworm (gazem in Hebrew), on the other hand is a caterpillar that suddenly appears in great numbers devouring herbage.  It’s pictured as filling you with intense grief and sorrow and quickly cutting you off from the joys of life.

Like an army, the Devil invades our lives with sin, drowning out the voice of God; devouring our lives with fear and hopelessness and cutting us off from the blessings and joys of life. Maybe for some the sin has not been dealt with at its root as evidenced by its swarming rebirth every several months. Perhaps for some sons and daughters, it has become a generational curse, holding up the promise of restoration.

Joel 1:4 outlines a devastating progression. “That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the canker worm eaten; and that which the canker worm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten.” The spiritual devastation doesn’t end with the palmerworm, but rather begins again with the locusts.

This is a reminder that sin and its brutal effects don’t just stop on their own. When cultivated, it grows bigger and stronger – from the palmerworm, to the locust, to the canker worm, and the caterpillar, and back to the palmerworm. It can also replicate itself indefinitely, even down to future generations, until it destroys life itself.

Through it all, we have the assurance that God will one day restore what was lost. In 2020, let’s reach back to where the worm first hatched. Like the prodigal, let’s repent of our sins, accept Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, and allow God, the Holy Spirit to transform us daily. Let’s claim the victory God has given to not tolerate sin in any way, shape or form in our lives. Let’s make this new year, a year of restoration.

All references to Hebrew words and meanings, unless otherwise noted, are taken from the New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (C) 1990 by Thomas Nelson Publishing. All dictionary references are taken from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary (C) 2015, unless otherwise noted.