A hailstorm last week that partially resembled one of ten plagues of Egypt in the Biblical Passover story was a blessing to the drought-stricken South African province of Northern Cape, in what The South African dubbed to have been “a miracle rainstorm.”

The town of Sutherland in Northern Cape was hammered by the massive hailstorm, and some parts were covered with a layer of three to five feet of ice. Though hail storms are not unprecedented in the region, this one turned out to be especially fortuitous in light of the region’s extreme drought.

The South African added that the “miracle rainstorm” was “the type of miraculous, unforeseen storm that the … Cape is crying out for.”  The Northern Cape region, which has barely seen any rainfall this season over the last three years has already seen water levels rise in its nearly dry reservoirs.

As miraculous as the storm was for locals in the Northern Cape province, the hail that fell in South Africa differed somewhat from the that which fell in the miracle of the seventh plague in Egypt.  The Bible describes the hailstorm that struck Egypt to have included a mixture of fire with ice.

The hail was very heavy—fire flashing in the midst of the hail—such as had not fallen on the land of Egypt since it had become a nation. Exodus 9:24

Although both hail storms were miraculous in nature, the one that struck Egypt was enormously destructive for the local inhabitants as punishment for the Pharaoh’s refusal to release the Israelites from bondage.

Throughout the land of Egypt the hail struck down all that were in the open, both man and beast; the hail also struck down all the grasses of the field and shattered all the trees of the field. Exodus 9:24