"Uplift thy hand towards the height of the heavens," the Lord says to Moses (Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 9:22), "and there shall be hail on all the land of Mizraim, upon men, and upon beasts, and upon every herb of the field in the land of Mizraim."
The Targum's direction is precise: k'lapei rum shemaya — toward the height of the heavens. Not just upward. Toward the very treasuries the Lord had already named. Moses is being told to point at the storehouse of hail, and by pointing, to unlock it.
The Aramaic paraphrase, preserved in the tradition long attributed to Yonatan ben Uzziel, emphasizes the scope of what is about to fall. On men. On beasts. On every herb of the field. The hail is not a warning shot. It is a comprehensive stripping of Egyptian wealth — human, animal, agricultural — in a single storm.
The Maggid teaches: Moses's hand is not the cause of the plague. It is the signal. The Holy One had already prepared the storm; Moses simply lifts the seal. There is theological humility in this detail. A prophet is not a magician. He is a pointer. What comes next comes from above.