John the Baptist in the desert ate locusts - John’s desert dwelling, coarse clothes, and harsh diet of eating locusts were, at least in part, what signaled to the people that he was a prophet. John’s life in the Judean desert was an indictment of the people as defiled and corrupt and a call on them to repent and seek cleansing and forgiveness from the Lord

Why did John the Baptist live in the desert and eat locusts?

Like many prophets in the Old Testament, John the Baptist not only preached his God-given message but illustrated it through his striking and arguably bizarre behavior. 

Living in a desert wilderness and surviving on insects would have been as unusual then as it is today, and that was precisely the point! 

Rugged isolation from the world and eating locusts and honey was a vivid picture of his message. 

This last and greatest of the prophets presented his whole life as a parable, a symbolic picture of repentance and faith. 

He literally departed from his wicked generation.

The prophets as living parables

John’s life of eating locusts in the wilderness of the Judean desert falls into an established biblical pattern.

Prophets were not merely traveling preachers who predicted the future. They delivered their messages through actions as well as words. 

The Lord commanded not only what they were to say, but also what they were to do to deliver His warnings and promises to the people. 

Note, for example, the instructions God gave to Isaiah:

“In the year that the commander came to Ashdod, when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him and he fought against Ashdod and captured it, at that time the Lord spoke through Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, ‘Go and loosen the sackcloth from your hips and take your shoes off your feet.’ 

"And he did so, going naked and barefoot. And the Lord said, ‘Even as My servant Isaiah has gone naked and barefoot three years as a sign and token against Egypt and Cush, so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush, young and old, naked and barefoot with buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt” - (Isaiah 20:1-4).

Isaiah had to carry out his prophetic ministry stark naked for three whole years to make his point. 

To illustrate the shame God would bring on Egypt, Isaiah bore that shame himself. 

He pictured the prediction in his own body. He not only proclaimed it. He lived it. 

This is not unique to Isaiah. 

The prophet Ezekiel once publicly acted out a siege on a brick with the word “Jerusalem” written on it to prophesy the coming judgment on the city (Ezekiel 4:1-3). 

He then had to lay on his side for over a year as a further display (Ezekiel 4:4-8). 

Afterward, he had to publicly cook his food over a pile of excrement, (Ezekiel 4:12-15).

Further examples could be multiplied, but these establish the point. 

When John was sent to spend his whole life apart from all the cities of men, living in the scorching sands of the wilderness and eating locusts and wild honey, he was doing what prophets often do; he was strikingly picturing his message.

Eating locusts in the wilderness: A call to repentance

John’s peculiar mode of life is well established in the gospels. 

He was called as a prophet and filled with the Spirit even before he was born (Luke 1:15-17).

And we are told that his wilderness dwelling began at a very early age:

“And the child continued to grow and to become strong in spirit, and he lived in the desert until the day of his public appearance to Israel,” - (Luke 1:80).

And, of course, the most famous description of this wilderness life is the foods he ate, repeated in multiple gospels:

“Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey” (Matthew 3:4, see also Mark 1:6).

Again, this was the sort of thing God had His prophets do. 

Indeed, John’s desert dwelling, coarse clothes, and harsh diet of eating locusts were, at least in part, what signaled to the people that he was a prophet!

“As these men were going away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John, ‘What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? But what did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ palaces! But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and one who is more than a prophet‘” - (Matthew 11:7-9).

For John to come in comfort and luxury would have been unfitting of his mission and message, as one early Christian writer noted:

“For how possibly could he have worn a purple robe, who turned away from the pomp of cities,”

John’s message was an urgent call to repentance in preparation for the immediate coming of the Lord:

“John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” - (Mark 1:4).

“Now in those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ For this is the one referred to by Isaiah the prophet when he said, ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness, “Make ready the way of the Lord, Make His paths straight!”‘” - (Matthew 3:1-3).

John’s wilderness life, including his pattern of eating what he could find in the desert rather than what he could farm or fetch in the town market, was a picture of repentance, a literal separation from the defiled generation of his day. 

That imagery would not have been alien to Jews of that time. 

Retreating to a barren place and surviving on wild forage (like eating locusts) had a cultural meaning at the time. 

In the non-biblical Jewish literature from the time between the Old and New Testaments, we read of the cultural hero Judas Maccabeus, the man who led in throwing off the oppressive tyranny of the Greek empire:

“But Judas Maccabeus, with about nine others, got away to the wilderness, and kept himself and his companions alive in the mountains as wild animals do; they continued to live on what grew wild, so that they might not share in the defilement” - (2 Maccabees 5:27).

Thus, John’s life in the Judean desert, foraging on locusts and wild honey, was an indictment of the people as defiled and corrupt and a call on them to repent and seek cleansing and forgiveness from the Lord, whose coming was near. 

It was an outward picture of the inner reality to which John called his people; a living parable of repentance and faith. 

We are not here called to physically leave our homes, pitch a tent on some isolated dune and eat what bugs we can find. 

Our turning from sin, however, ought to be quite like that. 

Our faith ought to be that level of trust. 

And just as John pointed not to himself but to Jesus who would come after him, the object of our faith ought to be in Christ alone.

Luke Wayne

carm.org

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