The hail was another of the Egyptian plagues, Exodus 9:22-25. The allusion also may be to the hailstones by which God fought against the five Canaanitish kings, Joshua 10:11. It signifies only further great judgments with which God will pursue the beast and his party, until they all be destroyed. The latter words only show the continued hardness of heart of the beast, and all his party; wherein also they answered Pharaoh and the Egyptians, (their type), who would relent with no steadiness and certainty, until they were all ruined by the waters of the Red Sea. In all this prediction of the final ruin of the papacy, Pharaoh and the Egyptians are apparently made the type of the pope and all his party:
1. As to their sins, which were idolatry, and the oppression of God's Israel.
2. In the plagues by which they were destroyed gradually; turning waters into blood, boils and blains, darkness, hail.
3. In their impenitency, and hardness of heart; only with these two differences, by which the antitype exceeded the type in wickedness: (1.) We read of Pharaoh oft relenting, though his goodness was like a morning dew, and he returned to his former stubbornness. (2.) We read nothing of the Egyptians blaspheming God, because of their plagues, which is often said of these Egyptians.