Numbers 11:33

With a very great plague. — The noun, maccah. plague, is cognate to the verb which is rendered smote. It is frequently used of a stroke inflicted by God, as, e.g., pestilence or any epidemic sickness. A surfeit, such as that in which the Israelites had indulged, especially under the circumstances in which they were placed, would naturally produce a considerable amount of sickness. Here, then, as in the account of the plagues of Egypt and in other parts of the sacred history, the natural and the supernatural are closely combined.