Hebrew word · H2284

חָגָב

chagav

locust

A grasshopper or small locust. It is listed among the clean insects in Lev 11:22 and is a picture of smallness in Num 13:33 and Eccl 12:5.

Appears 5 times in 5 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. · Updated October 25, 2026

What it means

locust, grasshopper

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

Range of meaning: A grasshopper or small locust. It is listed among the clean insects in Lev 11:22 and is a picture of smallness in Num 13:33 and Eccl 12:5.
Against the English: 'Grasshoppers' is accurate. The thing English cannot show is the sound-play with ḥûg, 'circle': ḥûg … ḥăgāvîm.
Used elsewhere in the period: In Num 13:33 the spies say, 'we were like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and so we were in theirs.' People who knew Israel's story would hear that scale reversed here: the 'giants' of Babylon are now the grasshoppers.

Range of meaning: A kind of locust or grasshopper. It is listed among the insects Israel was allowed to eat (Lev 11:22) and is used as a picture of smallness (Num 13:33; Isa 40:22). Ecclesiastes 12:5 mentions it in its description of old age.
Against the English: BSB, KJV and WEB say "locust(s)". Some versions say "grasshoppers". Either is acceptable; ancient Hebrew had several words for these insects that do not match modern species exactly.
Used elsewhere in the period: Only here is ḥagav the insect of a devouring plague. Elsewhere the destroying swarms are ʾarbeh (Exod 10; Joel 1:4) and ḥasil (1 Kgs 8:37 // 2 Chr 6:28). Swarms of desert locusts struck the Levant again and again; one in 1915 stripped Palestine bare.

Range of meaning: A kind of locust or grasshopper. It is listed among the clean, edible insects (Lev 11:22). It can appear as a devouring pest (2 Chr 7:13), and it stands for something feeble (Eccl 12:5) or tiny (Isa 40:22).
Against the English: "Grasshoppers" (all major English versions) is accurate. A modern reader may picture a lone garden insect. The Israelite picture was a common, small, edible creature, something you could step on or eat.
Used elsewhere in the period: Lev 11:22; Num 13:33; Isa 40:22; Eccl 12:5; 2 Chr 7:13. Akkadian and Egyptian texts also use locusts as a picture of great numbers or of smallness.

Leviticus · 1

Leviticus 11:22 הֶחָגָ֖ב the grasshopper

Of these you may eat any kind of locust, katydid, cricket, or grasshopper.

Numbers · 1

Numbers 13:33 כַּֽחֲגָבִ֔ים like grasshoppers

We even saw the Nephilim there—the descendants of Anak that come from the Nephilim! We seemed like grasshoppers in our own sight, and we must have seemed the same to them!”

Here: A chagav is a small locust or grasshopper, one of the edible insect kinds in Leviticus 11:22. It was a proverbial picture of something tiny and insignificant (Isa 40:22).

2 Chronicles · 1

2 Chronicles 7:13 חָגָ֖ב [the] grasshopper

If I close the sky so there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send a plague among My people,

Here: A locust or grasshopper, singular but meaning the whole swarm. It is an unusual word for a locust plague. Solomon's prayer used the commoner words ʾarbeh and ḥasil (6:28).

Ecclesiastes · 1

Ecclesiastes 12:5 הֶֽחָגָ֔ב the grasshopper

when men fear the heights and dangers of the road, when the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper loses its spring, and the caper berry shrivels—for then man goes to his eternal home and mourners walk the streets.

Here: A small leaping locust, a byword for lightness and quickness (and for smallness, Num 13:33; Isa 40:22). Here it is slowed and weighed down.

Isaiah · 1

Isaiah 40:22 כַּחֲגָבִ֑ים [are] like grasshoppers

He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth; its dwellers are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.

Here: Small, hopping insects. Seen from God's throne, people are as tiny as insects look to a man standing in a field. It recalls the spies who felt 'like grasshoppers' next to the giants (Num 13:33).

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.