על חיי משה, ספר א כ״אOn the Life of Moses, Book I 21
א׳
1[120] When the plague abated, and the king and his surroundings recovered their courage, Moses, at God’s command, stretched his rod into the air, and then a violent south wind swooped down, gaining force and intensity throughout the day and night. This in itself was a source of much mischief, for the south wind is dry and produces headache and makes hearing difficult, and thus is fitted to cause distress and suffering, particularly in Egypt which lies well to the south, where the sun and the planets have their orbits, so that when the wind sets it in motion the scorching of the sun is pushed forward with it, and burns up everything.
ב׳
2[121] But it also brought with it a huge multitude of creatures which destroyed the plants, locusts that is, who poured forth ceaselessly like a stream, and filling the whole air devoured whatever the lightnings and hail had left, so that nothing any longer could be seen growing in all that great country.
ג׳
3[122] Then those in authority, reluctantly brought to a full realization of their own evil plight, approached the king and said: “How long will you refuse to grant these men leave to depart? Do you not yet understand that Egypt is destroyed?” The king yielded, or appeared to do so, and promised to comply if he were relieved from the dire scourge. And when Moses prayed again, a wind from the sea caught and scattered the locusts.
ד׳
4[123] But, when they were scattered, and the king was sick to death at the thought of releasing the people, a plague arose greater than all that had gone before; for, in bright daylight, darkness was suddenly overspread, possibly because there was an eclipse of the sun more complete than the ordinary, or perhaps because the stream of rays was cut off by continuous clouds, compressed with great force into masses of unbroken density. The result was that night and day were the same, and indeed what else could it seem but a single night of great length, equivalent to three days and the same number of nights?
ה׳
5[124] Then, indeed, as we are told, some who had thrown themselves on their beds did not dare to rise from them, while others, when any of the needs of nature pressed, felt their way along the walls or any other object, proceeding with difficulty as though they were blind. For the light of artificial fire was partly quenched by the prevailing storm wind, partly dimmed to the point of disappearance by the depth of the darkness, so that sight, the most indispensable of the senses, though sound in itself, was helpless and unable to see anything; and the other senses were discomfited,
ו׳
6[125] like subjects when their queen has fallen. For men could not bring themselves to speak or hear or take food, but lay tortured in silence and famine with no heart to use any of the senses, so entirely overwhelmed were they by the disaster, until Moses again took pity and besought God, Who made light to take the place of darkness, and day of night, with bright open sky all around.