The Land, Vomiting Out It’s Inhabitants
‘Vomiting’ is a metaphor for violently expelling, discharging, removing, eradicating, forcing out or ‘getting rid of’. Because of ‘sin’ and ‘abominations’ that cause the Lord God disgust, he will remove the people or nations from the lands they were/are given, because they did not keep his commandments, laws, or correct ways of living. ‘Vomiting’ describes something (sin, abominations) ‘vile’, ‘sick’, ‘poisonous’, ‘deadly’, ‘disgusting’, ‘gross’, ‘evil’, ‘reprobate’, ‘foul’, ‘loathsome’, ‘reprehensible’, ‘contamination’, ‘not pure’, ‘deathly,’ that which needs to be (forcefully) ‘eradicated’ or ‘removed’ from its present state or location.
God is referring to the ‘gross’ sin and ‘abominations’ occurring in the lands or locations he gave people. In lands of ‘milk and honey’ (wholesome, good things), the people who sin(ned) turn the land into something vile or putrid and offensive, and thus need to be cast out or ‘vomited out’ like a poison that has made the land sick.
The simple interpretation of the above scripture is this: The sins of the people defile the land, and God therefore punishes the land for their sins. But then the land refuses the punishment and therefore vomits out the perpetrators of such sins.
Leviticus 20:22 ‘You shall therefore keep all My statutes and all My judgments, and perform them, that the land where I am bringing you to dwell may not vomit you out.
Leviticus 18:24-30 “Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for by all these the nations are defiled, which I am casting out before you. For the land is defiled; therefore I visit the punishment of its iniquity upon it, and the land vomits out its inhabitants. You shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations, either any of your own nation or any stranger who dwells among you (for all these abominations the men of the land have done, who were before you, and thus the land is defiled), lest the land vomit you out also when you defile it, as it vomited out the nations that were before you. For whoever commits any of these abominations, the persons who commit them shall be cut off from among their people. ‘Therefore you shall keep My ordinance, so that you do not commit any of these abominable customs which were committed before you, and that you do not defile yourselves by them: I am the LORD your God.’”
AS YOU SEE ALL THESE THINGS COME TO PASS: The cicadas are coming, and some may become ‘flying saltshakers of death’
Story by Jason Bittel Washington Post April 20, 2024
This spring and summer, people in parts of the American Midwest and South will get to experience a numerically magnificent wildlife event: a rare double emergence of periodical cicadas. With the arrival of Brood XIX and Brood XIII, trillions of harmless, baby-carrot-size insects will be singing their hearts out from Wisconsin to Louisiana, Maryland to Georgia, and many places in between.
The last time these broods co-emerged, the year was 1803, Thomas Jefferson was president, and the Louisiana Purchase had just been completed — which means many of the states where cicada love songs will soon fill the air were not even officially part of the nation yet.
As impressive as that is, this year’s entomological phenomenon will be extra-special for researchers hoping to unravel the evolutionary mysteries of bugs that only crawl out of the ground in roughly 13-year and 17-year intervals.
Broods are not the same thing as species, and each brood can contain multiple cicada species that can emerge in different places. In 2024, all seven cicada species will be represented, a coincidence that won’t happen again until 2037.
That means this year’s emergence will be a data-collecting gold mine.
One of the more unusual mysteries scientists hope to investigate involves a parasitic fungus that attacks adult cicadas, turning them into what one expert calls “flying saltshakers of death.”
“So it’s pretty spectacular, from the standpoint of a scientist that’s interested in cicadas,” said Matt Kasson, a mycologist at West Virginia University.
A life spent underground
Cicadas are true bugs in the insect family Hemiptera. Famous for their repetitive courtship calls, cicada adults are large, loud and highly conspicuous. But most of a cicada’s life is spent below ground as a nymph.
Cicada nymphs are probably among the most underappreciated forest herbivores, since most of the time they’re out of sight, making a living by sucking juices out of the roots of trees and other plants. They emerge in the spring or summer, when the soil about a foot below ground reaches 64 degrees. Nymphs then climb up the nearest vertical object and molt into their adult form. Those winged adults spend their brief but riotous lives mating and, for the females, laying eggs.
Cicadas can be broken into two general types: annual cicadas, which tend to have black or green eyes and can be heard every year, and periodical cicadas, which usually have red eyes and only emerge in 13-year or 17-year intervals.
While they are nymphs, these long-lived insects must escape the cold by burrowing down below the frost line. In some parts of their range, such as Wisconsin, that can mean living at depths of more than five feet beneath the surface.
This makes every emergence important for scientists. If a researcher studying a species of zebra or puffin wants to take genetic samples, they may have to endure hostile environments or treacherous journeys, but at least those animals are almost guaranteed to be present in any given year. The same is not true for a given cicada species. They may technically be there, but they are too deep underground to find easily and to access without causing significant harm to the animals. (Kasson said he has tried, and he came up empty.)
n addition, cicada broods don’t usually sync up; it’s been nine years since such a thing last took place. And when they do overlap in time, they tend to be spread out in space, with emergences happening several states away from each other.
This means some questions can only be investigated in certain places at certain times, depending on which broods are on deck that year and which species they contain.
This year, though, cicadas from Brood XIX and Brood XIII will butt right up against each other, mostly in Illinois. And this is where things get scientifically exciting.
A sprinkling of spores
Kasson hopes to study a cicada-afflicting parasite known as Massospora. When this fascinating fungus infects an adult cicada, it floods the insect with amphetamine and psilocybin, each of which appear to influence its behavior.
For instance, although the fungus has taken over the lower-third of its body, replacing its abdomen and genitals with fungal tissue, the cicada appears to feel no pain. Instead, infected cicadas seem to want to party.
“There are some hypersexual behaviors,” Kasson said. “The males pretend to be females to get other healthy males to come and attempt to mate with them. And that’s probably a strategy by the fungus to increase the number of individuals that the fungus is able to infect.”
The parasite typically affects less than 5 percent of a given cicada population. But once infected, those chalky white abdomens sprinkle spores everywhere they go.
Kasson is trying to conduct genetic work to learn more about how the fungus persists in animals with such unusual and disjointed life cycles. This year he will be able collect contemporary samples from a 13-year brood for the first time — old, archived specimens have been used in the past — which could yield some interesting results.
“Although we have limited data, some of the DNA sequence data from the 13-year broods are somewhat different from the 17-year broods, and it makes me wonder if there’s actually some genetic differences in the strains,” he said.
Researchers are also interested in the fungus as a source of new medicines, Kasson added. It has been used as a traditional form of medicine for inflammation among cultures in China and New Zealand’s Maori.
Time-shifted cicadas
Because Brood XIX and Brood XIII overlap in very few areas, it’s unlikely that any locale will experience twice as many cicadas as usual. (With several million cicadas emerging per acre, a doubling of that would be, well, intense.) It’s also unlikely most people will notice a difference between broods in areas where the two are adjacent.
“They look identical. They sound identical. And genetically, they’re pretty much identical,” said Chris Simon, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Connecticut.
This is not always the case. For instance, Magicicada neotredecim is a 13-year cicada that will emerge this year as part of Brood XIX in Illinois. That species is nearly twice as large as Magicicada septendecula, which will also emerge as part of Brood XIII, appearing a little to the north in Illinois, as well as in Iowa and Wisconsin.
For scientists like Simon, the real opportunity is in much less obvious distinctions. She wants to learn more about how cicada broods count the years, something she’s trying to understand by sequencing whole genomes and looking for genes or groups of genes that control whether a cicada follows the 13- or 17-year cycle.
“One of the most interesting things is we thought that the year classes, or broods, were reproductively isolated, because we thought they had an exact life cycle, and the adults would never see each other,” Simon said. “But it turns out, it’s not exact, and sometimes they come out four years early, or four years late.”
This means that the different broods can still exchange genes with each other, likely to be driving further evolution of the species.
“When 13- and 17-year cicadas come out in the same year, you can actually do hybridization experiments,” Simon said. The last time she had a chance to do such work was in 2015, and 1998 before that.
Simon added that inexactitude in cicada timing is thought to be on the rise due to climate change, which is elongating the nymphs’ growing season underground. Similarly, climate change can affect their distribution, as evidenced by Brood VI becoming more established in the Washington area in recent years, she said.
Sometimes, over the course of hundreds of thousands of years, 17-year cicada broods turn into 13-year cicada broods.
Other scientists want to better understand how cicadas affect the plants they prey upon, as well as how trees defend themselves against the herbivores. Some studies show reduced growth in tree rings, for example, as well as lower yields in orchards, where cicadas are present.
However, cicada emergences have ecological benefits, too, providing a smorgasbord of protein for predators, as well as boosts in phosphorus and nitrogen for plant life, thanks to trillions of decaying insect bodies. According to a study from 2005, cuckoos have more offspring in years following cicada emergences, while other bird species, such as crows, seem to fly away from the emergences, presenting yet another ecological enigma.
If you’re out during this year’s emergence and your dog or toddler happens to gulp down a cicada or three, don’t worry about it, said Maureen Turcatel, collections manager of insects at the Field Museum in Chicago. Cicadas can’t bite or sting, and they are perfectly edible.
“It’s going to be loud,” Turcatel said, “but especially for the 13-year and 17-year cicadas coming out in Illinois, it’s going to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
Dear Earth, It Has Begun!
Documentary: Satan, The Antichrist and The One-World Government
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Night Watchman
Paul Rolland
Night Watchman Ministries
Make Your (7) Decision for Christ NOW!!!!!!! Time is Up!!!!!!!
Jesus Christ’s Offer of Salvation:
The ABCs (7) of Salvation through Jesus Christ (the Lamb)
- (7) Admit/Acknowledge/Accept that you are sinner. Ask (7) God’s forgiveness and repent of your sins.
. . . “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23).
. . . “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one.” (Romans 3:10).
. . . “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8).
B. Believe Jesus is Lord. Believe that (7) Jesus Christ is who He claimed to (7) be; that He was both fully God (7) and fully man and that we are (7) saved through His death, burial, and resurrection. (7) Put your trust in Him as your (7) only hope of salvation. Become a son (7) or daughter of God by receiving Christ. (7777777) 7×7
. . . “That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. (John 3:15-17). For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Romans 10:13).
C. Call upon His name, Confess (7) with your heart and with your lips (7) that Jesus is your Lord and Savior.
. . . “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” (Romans 10:9-10).
. . . “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” (John 1:8-10).
. . . “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. (John 2:2).
. . . “In this was manifested the love of god toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.” (1 John 4:9, 14-15).
. . . “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” (Romans 5:8-10).
. . . “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:23).
. . . “Jesus saith unto them, I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6).
. . . “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.” (Romans 1:16).
. . . “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” (Acts: 4:12).
. . . “Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth for there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” (1 Timothy 2:4-6).
. . . “For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Thessalonians 5:9).
. . . “But as many as received him, to them gave the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.” (John 1:12).
True Church / Bride of Christ Spared from God’s Wrath:
Romans 5:8-10. “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.”
Romans 12:19. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
1 Thessalonians 1:10. And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.
1 Thessalonians 5:9. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
Romans 8:35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Jeremiah 30:7. Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble, but he shall be saved out of it.
Revelation 3:10 Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.