Storm, Locusts, Lice, Frogs and Blood

The account continues from there. Pharaoh's people did not listen. Even after they had said that they would, they began to persecute the more. So Allah (swt) began to send them greater signs, which afflicted them directly. These were not signs merely for reflection; they were signs that touched them closely. So Allah says in verse 133:

Fa-arsalnā ʿalayhimu al-ṭūfāna wa-l-jarāda wa-l-qummala wa-l-ḍafādiʿa wa-l-dama āyātin mufaṣṣalāt. We sent upon them a great storm. So it began: a storm ravaged them. Thereafter came locusts everywhere, devouring everything — all the crops and the rest. So they have a storm, which has unsettled them; and their crops are now being eaten by locusts. They resemble caterpillars; there was a swarm of them in the Ḥaram, at Makkah Mukarramah or thereabouts, last year. And qummal: after that — for these were sent one after another — lice were sent upon them. The lice attacked the animals, their livestock and their hair; so that was destroyed and harmed. And thereafter, wa-l-ḍafādiʿ — consider it — frogs everywhere. They would open their mouths and fear that a frog would leap into them. They were everywhere; a whole pestilence of them. Everywhere. And after that, blood everywhere. They have water, they have it stored, they draw some of it out, and there is blood in it. Blood everywhere. Blood everywhere, blood everywhere. This did not come all at once; it came one thing after another. And each time such a thing befell them — verse 134:

Wa-lammā waqaʿa ʿalayhimu al-rijz: they would say, "Yā Mūsā" — they would run to Mūsā (peace be upon him): call upon your Lord, and if He removes this from us, we shall become believers, and we shall let the Banū Isrāʾīl go with you.

Wa-lammā kashafnā ʿanhumu al-rijza ilā ajal: and when Allah would lift the storm, for instance — the storms being ended for a while — they would return to their own ways; they would return to their arrogance and their enmity and all the rest. So, fa-ntaqamnā minhum: then came the next thing; and then they would come and ask for relief again. They were simply obstinate people. Fa-ntaqamnā — and these were the Copts in question.

Fa-ntaqamnā minhum: We took retribution of them. Fa-aghraqnāhum fī al-yamm: and here it is stated simply that We drowned them. The account is known: We drowned them. Allah then says — and it is miraculous; one need only think upon the Banū Isrāʾīl and the deliverance of the Israelites from Pharaoh. It is a mighty account. It gives one great strength to think upon it.

Wa-awrathnā al-qawma alladhīna kānū yustaḍʿafūna mashāriqa al-arḍi wa-maghāribahā allatī bāraknā fīhā: those who were made weak, and held to be lowly and weak and downtrodden, in the east and the… Those who were downtrodden — to them We gave in inheritance the land We had blessed. And bimā ṣabarū, Allah says: because they were patient. And We destroyed Pharaoh.