George, however, mentioned that the Psalmist may have had a different
tradition in front of him than is in Ex 10:13. This set me thinking about
the tradition in Ex 10:13; and I noticed that it is the only plague of the
ten that mentions an intermediate natural cause: wind being employed both to
bring the locusts and to remove them. That got me thinking about locusts;
so, I did a little research and discovered that wind and locust plagues are
normally associated with each other in accounts of locust plagues. (e.g.,
William Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, vol 2, 1893, pp. 130-1, 887;
National Geographic, Aug, 1969, pp. 202, 220) An old farmer in Ethiopia
called locust plagues, "the teeth of the wind."
As it turns out, locusts while in a plague-mode, "gregarious," continue in a
straight line except as moved by the wind. Cansdale (All the Animals of the
Bible Lands, p. 241) says "wind is probably the main factor in determining
the direction taken."
This suggests to me that no matter what tradition the Psalmist of 105:34 may
have been looking at, he probably would have had wind at least in the back of
his mind as a factor in the coming of the locusts, even though he does not
mention the wind in his Psalm.
If anyone is interested in a very full description with excellent pictures of
a locust plague as related to various accounts in the Bible, see John
Whiting, "Jerusalem's Locust Plague," National Geographic, Dec, 1915, pp.
511-550.
Paul S.