these two to whom Pharaoh alluded when he asked, "Who are they?" A Midrash read Pharaoh's words to Moses in , "see that evil is before your face," to indicate that Pharaoh deduced that one who made a request for the young and the old to go could have only one object in mind—to flee. Pharaoh thus perceived that Moses sought to do evil and flee. On that account, Pharaoh said that he would not listen to Moses in anything further, and in the words of , "they were driven out from Pharaoh's presence" The Mishnat Rabbi Eliezer taught that Pharaoh mocked the Israelites when he told Moses in , "for that is what you desire." The Mishnat Rabbi Eliezer taught that mockery yields evil results, for God did not change the course of nature in any of the plagues until Pharaoh mocked the Israelites. Pharaoh jeered at the Israelites, telling Moses "You tell me, 'The men, the women, and the children are to go'; yet you really need only the men." And since Pharaoh mocked the Israelites, God altered the course of nature and turned light into darkness upon Pharaoh. A Midrash read Pharaoh's words to Moses in , "I have sinned against the Lord your God," to apply to Pharaoh's not letting the Israelites go free (as God had commanded Pharaoh through Moses). And Pharaoh's words to Moses, "I have sinned . . . against you," to apply to Pharaoh's driving Moses out from his presence, as well as to Pharaoh's intention to curse Moses when Pharaoh said in , "So be the Lord with you." Thus Pharaoh sought forgiveness in , asking Moses, "Now therefore forgive, I pray, my sin only this once." The Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael called the east wind with which God brought the plague of the locusts in "the mightiest of winds." The Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael taught that God used the east wind to punish the generation of the Flood, the people of the Tower of Babel, the people of Sodom, the Egyptians in , the Tribes of Judah and Benjamin, the Ten Tribes, Tyre, a wanton empire, and the wicked of Gehinnom. Reading the words of , "there remained not one locust in all the border of Egypt," Rabbi Johanan taught that when the locusts first came, the Egyptians rejoiced and gathered them and filled barrels with them. Then God became