Commentaire sur L’Exode 9:24

מתלקחת בתוך הברד [AND FIRE] FLASHING UP AMIDST THE HAIL — a miracle within a miracle! Fire and hail mingled, although hail is water! But in order to perform the will of their Creator they made peace one with the other (Exodus Rabbah 12:4).

ואש מתלקחת בתוך הברד. Driven by the immense velocity and pressure of the descending hailstones. The heat generated in the atmosphere resulted in unnatural sounds being heard everywhere. Both hard and soft plants were destroyed by the hail. Verse 25 spells all this out in detail.

ויהי ברד ואש, there was hail and fire simultaneously, etc. The word מתלקחת is used to inform us that though water and fires are opposites, one of which is bound to prevail over the other in any encounter, in this instance they demonstrated the ability to co-exist. This was possible since both were performing G'd's will by so doing.

A miracle within a miracle. . . One miracle was that a flame usually ascends, but here it descended. The second miracle was that the fire and ice did not extinguish, [or melt,] one another. [Re’m, citing Shemos Rabba]. However, this does not seem correct [as an explanation of Rashi]. Firstly, fire descended many times from heaven to earth, both for good and for bad, and it was not considered miraculous. Secondly, the previous verse stated, “and fire came streaming down upon the earth,” but there it does not say, [“there had never been anything like it”]. There is a dispute over this point in Shemos Rabba, and it seems to me [that Rashi is following the view of Rabbi Nechemiah]. According to Rabbi Nechemiah, the fire and hail combined with each other. The fire was flashing from inside the pieces of hail, and both were burning. According to his view, the second miracle was that the hail burnt. This explanation is what Rashi intended, for he said: “The fire and the hail intermingled.” According to this, when Rashi finishes by saying: “they made peace between themselves,” he is referring to [the second miracle,] that they both were burning. (Nachalas Yaakov)

V. 24. מתלקהת, das Feuer fasste nur sich mitten im Hagel, sonst wäre der Hagel dadurch geschmolzen.

ואש מתלקחת בתוך הברד, “and fire was contained within the hail stones,” it is clear that after the hail had hit the ground, that this fire started conflagrations. [Otherwise who would have known that there was fire inside the hail stones? Ed.]