"He covered the face of all the land, until the land was darkened, and every herb of the ground was consumed, and all the fruit of the tree that the hail had left; and nothing green of tree or herb of the field was left in all the land of Mizraim" (Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 10:15).
The Aramaic paraphrase, preserved in the Targum attributed to Yonatan ben Uzziel, uses the word chashochat ar'a — the land was darkened. This is a preview. The ninth plague, darkness, is only a few verses away. But already, in the eighth plague, the sky over Egypt has gone black with wings. Before the Lord sends true darkness, He sends a living darkness — made of insects.
The Targum is careful to note the full scope of the devastation. Lo ishte'ir yarok b'ilan u'v'issev chakla — nothing green was left on tree or herb in all the field. Not a leaf. Not a blade. The colors of the land had been revised.
The Maggid teaches: when the Holy One brings judgment, the land itself testifies. The soil remembers. The trees, stripped to skeletons. The fields, bare to the soil. Egypt's physical appearance changed. When visitors from other nations arrived in the coming weeks, they would see a country that looked as if it had been sacked by an army — but there was no army.
There was only the wind, and a prophet's hand, and a God no map could contain.