Locusts upon the earth:— See Joshua 6:5. Joel 1:6. Bishop Newton interprets this part of the prophesy as follows: "At the sounding of the fifth trumpet, a star fallen from heaven, meaning the impostor Mohammed, opened the bottomless pit, and there arose a smoke out of the pit, and the sun and the air were darkened by it; that is, a false religion was set up, which filled the world with darkness and error; and swarms of Saracens, or Arabian locusts, overspread the earth. A false prophet is very fitly typified by a blazing star, or meteor. The Arabians likewise are properly compared to locusts, not only because numerous armies frequently are so; but because swarms of locusts often arise from Arabia. In the plagues of Egypt, to which constant allusion is made in thesetrumpets, the locusts are brought by an east wind (Exodus 10:13.), that is, from Arabia, which lay eastward of Egypt; and in the Book of Judges, ch. Revelation 7:12. the people of Arabia are compared to locusts or grasshoppers for multitude; for, in the original, the word for both is the same. As the natural locusts are bred in pits and holes of the earth, so these mystical locusts are truly infernal, and proceed with the smoke from the bottomless pit.
Related Commentaries of Revelation 9:3
Revelation 9:3
3 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.