Sabbatical locust respite[1]
ויעל הארבה על כל-ארץ מצרים וינח בכל גבול מצרים כבד מאד לפניו לא-היה כן ארבה כמהו ואחריו לא יהיה-כן
The plague of locusts came up upon all of the land of Egypt. They rested in all of the region of Egypt. It was very dense. Never before was there such a number of locusts and there never will be like it[2]
The Torah, when describing the plague of locusts, uses an interesting verb. It says וינח, they rested. In fact, this verb appears one other time in Tanach[3]. When else? In the context of Shabbos. The Torah says[4] Hashem rested (וינח) on the seventh day of creation, and therefore commanded the weekly mitzvah of Shabbos. What’s the significance of this shared word usage? This teaches us that the locusts rested on Shabbos[5]. The plague of locusts was that they consumed all of the crops of the entirety of Egypt. It would seem that they refrained from doing so on Shabbos.