Revelation 9:7

7. Shapes A minute description of the locust-demons. In nearly every point there is some basis in the natural locust; but some additional trait both shows them supernatural and suggests the symbolic signification. Infernal, soul-corrupting errors and lies are belligerent like horses prepared for battle; are dominant as with crowns; have very intelligent and plausible-looking faces; are winning, like women, but biting as with teeth of lions; they are self-fortified, as with breastplates; their sounding wings indicate their infinite number and their readiness for moral but not slaughtering battle; their stings indicate what miseries they en tail upon the unsealed and profane. Sin is often beautiful to sight, but has ever a sting in its tail.

Like unto… as… as The repeated as in this whole description must be specially noted. It indicates in each case resemblance, not a reality.

These locusts were only as horses, not real horsemen, such as meet us in Revelation 9:16. It is a moral, or rather immoral, army that is here symbolized. Naturalists have remarked the resemblance of the locust to a horse. Hence he is called in German a heupferd, a grass- horse. So Joel, (Joel 2:4,) describing locusts, says, “Their appearance is as the appearance of horses.”

Crowns like gold ”Probably means the horns (antlers, feelers) of the locust tipped with yellow, that is, with a golden colour, and these are in all probability here called crowns to show that they are the emblems of victorious and irresistible march.”

Faces… as… of men However devilish or brutal in nature, error must wear an intelligent, rational, and humanized look. A distant resemblance in the locust to a human face is the natural base that suggests the symbol.