First, the text names these stones twice (verse 11), and in the latter place says they were “stones of hail” — in both places the Seventy [render it] λίθους χαλάζης (lithous chalazēs, “hailstones”). And Ecclesiasticus [Sirach] 46, verse 6, [says this happened] so that the stubborn Chananaeans might be crushed by that plague which against Pharaoh’s Egyptians was the seventh (Exodus 9, verses 23–24). God could, to be sure, have cast down upon them stones not of hail in like manner; and that some such [stones] did fall at some time, Pliny relates (book 2, chapter 60) — though with fables about the stone of the Sun. Secondly, that these stones were large, the text expressly asserts. Large hail is often recorded [in the histories]: of 12 and 16
feet in length, about the year of the Lord 823 and 824, as it is in Sigebert and in Bonfinius (book 10, decade 1). [Hail] of goose-egg [size], in the year 1183, as Bergomensis writes; [hail] in which there was, as it were, carved out the sign of the cross, the face of Christ, and this name, “JESUS THE NAZARENE,” in the year of the Lord 1240, according to Vincent of Beauvais (book 30 of the History, chapter 138) [and] Nauclerus (generation 41). [Hail] of the size of a hen’s egg in the year 1392, as the compiler of the Chronology says; [hail] of such size that on it appeared men’s faces with beards, [and] women with their hair and veils, in the year 1395, according to Krantz (book 9, chapter 3); [hail] of goose-egg [size] again in the year 1400, according to Robert Gaguin (book 9); indeed of [the size of] three eggs in the year 1441, according to the compiler of the Chronology; [hail] of ostrich-egg [size] in the year 1470, according to Bergomensis, Palmerius, and Bonfinius (decade 4, book 2); and at last [hail] of such great size that in the Württemberg dominion it shattered the windows and roofs of Rotenburg on the Neckar, in the year 1507, according to Surius.
But how great precisely the Joshuan hail was is not indeed clear to me; yet not in vain does Scripture call it “great,” so that it perhaps yielded to none of those [hailstorms] which have been recorded. And this can be proved from the effect: for far more died by the stones of the hail than those whom the children of Israel had struck with the sword (verse 11). Thirdly, from the same effect one understands of what kind the stones were: heavy, namely, angular, sharp — most apt for overwhelming, wounding, and tearing apart. And therefore, in the cited place, Ecclesiasticus says it was χάλαζαν δυνάμεως κραταιᾶς (chalazan dynameōs krataias, “hail of mighty power”) — that is, [hail] which struck with such force and great impetus that it laid the enemy low; while meanwhile, by a great miracle, it touched not at all the Jews who clung to their [enemies’] backs, as though it had the power and intelligence to distinguish the pious from the impious, the faithful from the unfaithful, for a cause to be indicated in the following question. That thunder and lightnings arose at the same time, Josephus is witness.