Psalms 78:48

And he gave over their beasts to the hail,

And their cattle to fiery lightnings.

As the text stands, the reference is to the destruction of the Egyptian cattle as well as the crops by the lightning which accompanied the hailstorm (Exodus 9:28). But two Hebrew MSS., with which agrees the version of Symmachus, read Deber, -pestilence" in place of Bârâd, -hail." Now Deber is the word used in Exodus 9:3 ff. of the murrainwhich attacked the cattle. Resheph, the word rendered fiery lightnings, is also used of burning feverin Deuteronomy 32:24; Habakkuk 3:5; in the latter passage in parallelism with Deber. It seems possible, therefore, that this verse originally referred to the fifth plague, the murrain on the cattle. The LXX, Syr., Jer., Targ. however support the Massoretic Text.