Exodus 9:23

23 And Moses stretched out his staff to the heavens, and Yahweh gave thunder and hail, and fire went [to the] earth, and Yahweh caused hail to rain on the land of Egypt.

Exodus 9:23 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 9:23

And Moses stretched forth his rod toward heaven
The same which Aaron had made use of before, but was now in the hand of Moses, and whose rod it properly was: and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along upon the
ground,
hot thunderbolts, which struck their flocks, ( Psalms 78:48 ) and hail which fell so thick and weighty as to destroy both men and cattle, and break trees in pieces, and spoil the corn, the grass, and the tender herb; and fire, that is lightning, which descended so low, and in such quantities, as ran along the ground, and consumed all it met with. Artapanus ^F7, an Heathen writer, who speaks of this storm of hail, says, that Moses, besides the hail, caused earthquakes by night, so that those that escaped the earthquakes were taken away by the hail, and those that escaped the hail perished by the earthquakes, which he says overthrew all the houses, and most of the temples: and the Lord rained hail upon the land of Egypt;
upon Egypt, where rain was not common, and on all the land of Egypt, when in some parts of it it was scarce known, and hail as thick as rain; ice, snow, and hail, are most rarely if ever seen there, the air not being cold enough for the production of them ^F8. This was the Lord's immediate doing, when there was no likelihood of it, nor any appearance of second causes concurring to produce it, and came at the exact time he had foretold it should; all which were very extraordinary.

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FOOTNOTES:

F7 Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 27. p. 435, 436.
F8 Vid. Scheuchzer. Physica Sacra, vol. 1. p. 139.

Exodus 9:23 In-Context

21 But whoever did not {give regard to} the word of Yahweh abandoned his servants and his livestock in the field.

22 And Yahweh said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand to the heavens, and let there be hail in all the land of Egypt, on human and on animal and on all the vegetation of the field in the land of Egypt."

23 And Moses stretched out his staff to the heavens, and Yahweh gave thunder and hail, and fire went [to the] earth, and Yahweh caused hail to rain on the land of Egypt.

24 And there was hail, and fire [was] flashing back and forth in the midst of the very severe hail, the like of which was not in all the land of Egypt since it had become a nation.

25 And the hail struck in all the land of Egypt all that [was] in the field, from human to animal, and the hail struck all the vegetation of the field and smashed every tree of the field.

Footnotes

• [a]. The word often translated "voice" or "sound" is also used to describe thunder, as in this chapter