Bible Dictionaries
Hail

　　( 11 xii. 820), True hail, which is to be distinguished from so-called ‘soft hail,’ is formed of clear or granular ice. Impinging hailstones are often frozen together, and sometimes great ragged masses of ice fall with disastrous results to life and property. The seventh angel having poured his bowl upon the air, ‘great hail, every stone about a talent in weight, cometh down out of heaven upon men’ (Revelation 16:21). Diodorus Siculus (xix. 45) writes of storms in which ‘the size of the hail was incredible, for the stones fell a mina in weight, sometimes even more, so that many houses fell under their weight and not a few men were killed.’ The mina was about 2 lbs.-the sixtieth part of a talent.

　　James Strahan.