Commentaria in Exodum
Note five wonderful and horrible things in this plague
First, that these things were done in Egypt, where rain, thunder and hail are rare and slight.
Second, that this hail was of unusual size, like stones, says Philo, and thick like rain, as is plain here, verse 18.
Third, that, as Philo says, the hail was intermingled with fires, which nevertheless neither melted it, nor did it quench the lightnings, but both were borne together with the same impetus.
Fourth, this thunder was unusual and horrible, wonderfully striking the Egyptians. The hail laid low and beat down crops, fruits and produce, nay animals, not those at home, but those in the fields; the lightnings struck trees and all harder things, and animals and men. Of which, says Philo, if any survived, they carried about burnt wounds to the terror of those who saw. But this does not seem true; for the Lord, verse 19, foretold that all would die. Whence also verse 25 it is said: “And the hail smote in all the land of Egypt all that was in the fields, both man and beast: and the hail smote every herb of the field, and it broke every tree of the country.”
Fifth, that the land of Gessen alone was immune from this plague.
Mystically, St. Augustine: “The seventh precept,” he says, “is, Thou shalt not steal, and the seventh plague was hail on the fruits: what thou takest away by theft against the precept of God, thou losest from heaven; for no one has unjust gain without just loss; he who steals acquires a garment, but in the heavenly judgment loses faith: where there is gain, there is loss; visibly gain, invisibly loss. Gain by his blindness, loss because he lives without equity; those therefore who outwardly steal by their own judgment are inwardly hailed upon by the just judgment of God: because, namely, they are stricken in soul with the guilt of eternal death.” The hail was a type of the fire of hell, which will hail upon and breathe upon the damned. Who would not fear this fire, this hail? St. Jerome dreaded it, and therefore cast away all pleasures and betook himself into the desert as a harbour of safety. “I,” says he, epist. 22 to Eustochium, “who for fear of hell had condemned myself to such a prison, the companion only of scorpions and wild beasts.” Cyril of Alexandria dreaded it, in his oration On the Departure of the Soul: “I fear hell,” he says, “as being unending; I shudder at Tartarus, as having too much heat; I dread the darkness, since it admits no light; I fear the pestilential worm, since it is perennial.” Rightly therefore does Chrysostom compare us to children who fear masks and not fire: so we fear the masks of evils, namely temporal losses and troubles; but evil itself, that is sin, and the eternal fire to which it leads us, we do not dread. So he himself hom. 5 to the People.
AND IT WAS OF SO GREAT BIGNESS AS NEVER BEFORE WAS SEEN IN THE UNIVERSAL LAND OF EGYPT.—Hence thou mayest gather that what some fable is false, that rain and hail were never seen in Egypt. For if the comparison here is right, we may infer: therefore hail was sometimes seen, and much more rain, in Egypt, but not so great as this. Hence Diodorus Siculus, book 1, chap. 2, teaches that in Egypt there are rains, but very rare; and Philo: “Egypt,” he says, “knows not winter nor wintry storms: it is watered about the winter solstice by small and rare rains in maritime places only: but above Memphis it feels none at all”; and he adds the cause: “Because Egypt is not far from the torrid zone (for it is only 25 degrees from the equinoctial), and consequently burns; and because the overflowings of the Nile fertilize the fields enough, so that nature has no need to provide Egypt with showers.” It is wonderful and almost incredible what Philo adds, that the inundating Nile consumes the clouds from which rain is made: for the Nile does not swell to the clouds, unless he would say that the overflowing Nile by its violence hinders the vapours from ascending and thickening into clouds, or by a hidden sympathy attracts them to itself.
Note: The overflow of the Nile begins at the summer solstice, ceases at the autumn equinox, and helps the fields both by inundating and by silting and enriching them. Seneca adds, book 4 Natural Questions chap. 2, that nature has so disposed that at that time the Nile inundates Egypt, when the earth, burnt by the greatest heat, draws and drinks in water more deeply; so that it then drinks as much as can suffice for the yearly drought.
Various men give various causes of this overflowing: Solinus ascribes it to the sun and stars. Secondly, Ephorus ascribes it to the earth, rare and arid, and sweating in Egypt. Thirdly, Herodotus ascribes it to the nature of the Nile, as though it by its nature attracted waters to itself, and so overflowed. Fourthly, others ascribe it to subterranean bosoms, which, full of waters, pour themselves into the Nile. Fifthly, Thales and Aelian ascribe it to the Etesian winds, which, blowing from the opposite direction, resist the descending Nile and beat it back so that it overflows. But it is found by experience that the increase of the Nile is made not from the opposite direction, but from the marshes, from which the Nile receives the quantity of rain water: the force (add also the melting of the snows) which at a fixed time of the year is gathered to the marshes and those higher places from which the Nile flows, and flows into the Nile, and so increases it that it overflows more or less according to the abundance or scarcity of the rains and streams flowing into the Nile.
But why does this inundation in Egypt occur in summer? Because those marshes and fountains, as was found in this our age, are in that part of the world where it is winter at the time when at Alexandria and in Egypt it is summer: whence they then abound in rains, perhaps the celestial influence of some star ruling there concurring to the same end, as Scaliger will have it, exercit. tract. 9, chap. 10.
26. ONLY IN THE LAND OF GESSEN, WHERE THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL WERE, THE HAIL FELL NOT,—as if to say: All Egypt was struck by hail, except Gessen, in which many were immune from it, namely the Hebrews, with their cattle and fields. For that the Egyptians there as elsewhere were touched by hail I said verse 6.
30. BUT I KNOW THAT THOU AND THY SERVANTS DID NOT YET FEAR THE LORD GOD,—with the fear of piety, namely, flowing from reverence and religion toward God: so St. Augustine, Quest. 35; or even with the servile fear of punishments, such, namely, that while it remains, when the scourges cease you may let the people go. Whence it is: I know that you will not fear the Lord. For otherwise that for the time in which the plagues lasted they feared the Lord, all these their prayers testify; which so changed their heart, for a short time at least, that they seriously thought of letting the people go: for therefore shortly after Pharao, returning to his disposition free from punishment, is said to be hardened again.
32. BUT THE WHEAT AND THE RYE WERE NOT HURT.—The Hebrews and Lyranus understand by rye spelt, which besides the ear is also enclosed in husks, whereas wheat is enclosed by the ear alone.
BECAUSE THEY WERE LATE RIPE,—in Hebrew, because they were dark, that is, because they had not yet come forth, and lay hid still under the earth, or under thin grass; for about the end of February these things happened, as is plain from what was said chap. 7, near the end of Quest. 3.
35. AND HIS HEART WAS MADE HEAVY.—The heart of Pharao, so often smitten, so many signs given, so many plagues sent,
And much, that is, enough: let it suffice, and let there be no more voices of God, thunders and hail.
was not softened, but always hardened, and so daily became harder; BY THE HAND OF MOSES,—by Moses: for the hand is the organ of organs, says Aristotle; it is a Hebraism. In Hebrew it is, Pharao made heavy his own heart.