Le Deutéronome 7:23 Midrash : Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael & Midrash Tehillim

Variantly (on "vayehumam"): "hamamah" is pestilence as in (Devarim 3:23) "vehamam mehumah gedolah until they perished."

The Holy One Blessed be He heals all who enter the world, viz. (Exodus 15:26) "for I am the L–rd who heals you", (Jeremiah 17:14) "Heal me, O L–rd, and I will be healed. Save me, and I will be saved.", (Ibid. 3:22) "Return, wayward sons; I will heal your waywardness." Come and see that the healing of the Holy One Blessed be He is not like the healing of flesh and blood. The healing of flesh and blood — With what he smites, he does not heal. He smites with a knife and heals with a plaster. Not so the Holy One Blessed be He. With what He smites, He heals. When He smote Iyyov, He smote him with a tempest, viz. (Iyyov 9:11) "He struck me with a tempest and multiplied my wounds in vain." When He healed him, He healed him with a tempest, viz. (Ibid. 38:1) "And the L–rd answered Iyyov from the tempest." He answered him from the tempest and He healed him. And when the Holy One Blessed be He exiled Israel, He did so with clouds, viz. (Eichah 2:1) "How the L–rd has beclouded in His wrath the daughter of Zion." And when He gathers them in, He does so with clouds, viz. (Isaiah 60:8) "Who are those who fly like a cloud, like doves to their dove-cotes?" When He scatters them, He scatters them like doves, viz. (Ezekiel 7:16) "And their fugitives will flee. They will be in the mountains, all of them moaning like the doves of the valleys, each man in his sin." And when He returns them, He returns them like doves, viz.: "like doves to their dove-cotes." When He blesses Israel, He blesses them with looking, viz. (Devarim 26:15) "Look down from Your holy abode, from the heavens, and bless Your people, Israel." And when He exacted punishment of Egypt, He did so with "looking," viz. "and the L–rd looked to the camp of Egypt with a pillar of fire and cloud, and He confounded the camp of Egypt, etc." The pillar of cloud descended and made the sea-bed clay, and the pillar of fire made it so hot that the horses' hooves fell off. "and He confounded the camp of Egypt": He confounded them, He mixed them up, He removed their ensigns and they did not know what they were doing. Variantly: "Confounding" is plague, viz. (Devarim 7:23) "And He will confound them with a great confusion until they are destroyed."

And the Lord thundered from the heavens. Rabbi Abba said that the Lord promised Israel three wars of confusion when they entered the land, as it is said, "I will send My terror ahead of you" (Exodus 23:27), "The Lord your God will place them before you, causing them to panic" (Deuteronomy 7:23). And the rabbis derive another one from here, "The Lord threw Sisera into confusion" (Judges 4:15), and another from here, "The Lord thundered with a great voice" (1 Samuel 7:10) and confounded them. Rabbi Simon said there were two more, "And lightning bolts with great noise" (Zechariah 14:13), "The Lord's confusion will be upon them" (Zechariah 14:13). Rabbi Simon said in the name of Rabbi Abba that one was in the past, which was done to Pharaoh, and one is for the future for Gog and Magog.