There was hail and fire flashing continually in the midst of the hail, very heavy hail, such as had never been in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation.
God makes the clouds His arsenals. When He pleases, He draws forth hail and lightning as formidable artillery against His enemies, woeful havoc that kills men and beasts and batters down the very trees. Yet mark: Goshen was preserved untouched. God directs the pregnant clouds themselves and causes it to rain on one city and not on another.
AI summary
Commenting on Exodus 9:22-35
So there was hail, and fire mingled with the hail,.... Which was a miracle within a miracle, as Aben Ezra observes; and very wonderful indeed it was, that the hail did not quench the fire, nor the fire melt the hail, as Philo the Jew (i) remarks: very grievous, such as there was none like it in all the land of Egypt, since it became...
This seventh plague struck Egypt with an astonishment no living inhabitant had witnessed. Rain and hail were rare in the Delta; thunder occasionally heard. But this storm, hailstones of immense size, thunder in awful volleys, lightning sweeping the ground like fire, was an unexampled calamity that revealed the absolute supremacy of Israel's God.
AI summary
Commenting on Exodus 9:18-35