The wheat and spelt, however, were not destroyed, because they ripen later. The incompleteness of the agricultural destruction is significant. The wheat and spelt — the later crops — survive the hail because they are not yet developed. This means the plague is severe but not terminal; life in Egypt is wounded but not ended. More plagues are coming, and the locusts of the eighth plague will finish what the hail began by consuming whatever the hail left standing. Each plague contributes to a cumulative dismantling rather than a single annihilating blow. The survival of the wheat and spelt is also, paradoxically, another form of testimony: the timing of the hail was exact enough to destroy what God intended to destroy and spare what He intended to spare. Nature does not operate with that precision; only its Creator does.

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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