Comentario citado sobre Jeremías 18:17

but if there is perverseness in it, it causes destruction by wind When one is perverse with his tongue, it will ultimately bring upon him destruction that comes from the east wind, which is prepared to mete out retribution upon the wicked, as it is stated (Ex. 14:21): “with a strong east wind”; (Jer. 18: 17): “Like an east wind I will scatter them”; and (Ps. 48:8): “With an east wind, You break the ships of Tarshish.”

With an east wind That is an expression of retribution, with which the Holy One, blessed be He, recompenses the wicked, as it is stated (Exod. 14:21): “and the Lord led the sea with a strong east wind, etc.” Similarly (Ezek. 16:27, 26): “The east wind has broken you in the heart of the seas”; (Jer. 18:17), “Like an east wind, I will scatter you before the enemy.”

תכבד העבודה, “increase the workload!” The Egyptians were punished for this new decree at the sea when their chariots found it especially difficult to escape the onrushing waters. This is why the Torah specifically mentions (14,25) that “G’d made it כבד, “hard, difficult,” for the drivers to guide their chariots. Because the Egyptians decreed that the Jews had to provide their own straw, we find that they were tossed on the sea like straw (15,7). When we read here that the people had to scatter in order to find the straw, we find that in Jeremiah 18,17 the prophet describes that the Egyptians were scattered all over the sea. G’d’s punishing arm made the punishment fit the crime wherever possible. As to Pharaoh’s derisive comment that Moses and Aaron should not cause the people to turn to “false hopes,” Onkelos renders the words דברי שקר as “vain slogans.”

ברוח קדים עזה BY A POWERFUL EAST WIND — i. e. by the east wind which is the most powerful of the winds. This is the wind by which the Holy One, blessed be He, exacts punishment from the wicked, as it is said, (Jeremiah 18:17) “I will scatter them as with an east wind”; (Hosea 13:15) “An east wind shall come, the wind of the Lord”; (Ezekiel 27:26) “The east wind hath broken thee in the heart of the sea”; (Isaiah 27:8) “He hath removed her with His rough blast in the day of the east wind” (cf. Mekhilta).