There was hail again repeats what is said in verse 23. The word for fire is the same as verse 23, but here it is described as flashing continually. This is a participle meaning literally “seizing itself.” So various translations have “lightning flashing back and forth,” “fiery flashes” (New English Bible), “flashes of forked lightning” (Translator’s Old Testament), and “lightning cracking back and forth” (Durham). In the midst of the hail may be understood as “through the hail” (New English Bible, New American Bible), or even “as the hail was falling.”

Very heavy hail is simply “very heavy” in the Hebrew, with hail now understood. Such as had never been (literally “which was not like it”) introduces an English pluperfect because of the word since (literally “from then”). Since it became a nation refers back to when Egypt “first became a nation” (Jerusalem Bible, New Jerusalem Bible), so “It was the worst storm that Egypt had ever known in all its history” (Good News Translation). In all the land of Egypt may be understood as “anywhere in Egypt” (New Jerusalem Bible). It will be possible, in languages that do not favor so much repetition as in the Hebrew, to combine verses 23 and 24 as follows:

• So Moses pointed his walking stick toward the sky, and the LORD caused the sky to roar and hailstones to fall everywhere. Lightning flashed back and forth, striking the ground. This was the worst storm of its kind in the history of Egypt.

Quoted with permission from Osborn, Noel D. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Exodus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1999. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .