Now if I had stretched out My hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, then you would have been cut off from the earth.
Parallel translations
- WEB For now I would have stretched out my hand, and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth;
- KJV For now I will stretch out my hand, that I may smite thee and thy people with pestilence; and thou shalt be cut off from the earth.
- BSB For by this time I could have stretched out My hand and struck you and your people with a plague to wipe you off the earth.
- NASB For had I now put out My hand and struck you and your people with plague, you would then have been eliminated from the earth.
- NLT By now I could have lifted my hand and struck you and your people with a plague to wipe you off the face of the earth.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God says he could already have wiped Egypt out with pestilence. His restraint so far is deliberate mercy and purpose, not weakness.
Overview
Yahweh makes clear that Egypt's survival is owed entirely to his forbearance, not to any limit on his power. He could have ended Pharaoh instantly, but chose a measured course for a greater end. This restraint frames the next verse's explanation of why Pharaoh was spared. It reveals a God who governs judgment with patience and purpose.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Exod 3:20I will reach out my hand and strike Egypt with all my wonders which I will do among them, and after that he will let you go.
- Exod 14:28The waters returned, and covered the chariots and the horsemen, even all Pharaoh’s army that went in after them into the sea. There remained not so much as one of them.
- Exod 11:4–6Moses said, “This is what Yahweh says: ‘About midnight I will go out into the middle of Egypt,
- Exod 9:3behold, Yahweh’s hand is on your livestock which are in the field, on the horses, on the donkeys, on the camels, on the herds, and on the flocks with a very grievous pestilence.
- Exod 12:29–30At midnight, Yahweh struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of livestock.
- Exod 9:6Yahweh did that thing on the next day; and all the livestock of Egypt died, but of the livestock of the children of Israel, not one died.
- 1 Kgs 13:34This thing became sin to the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off, and to destroy it from off the surface of the earth.
- Exod 9:16but indeed for this cause I have made you stand: to show you my power, and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth;
- Prov 2:22But the wicked will be cut off from the land. The treacherous will be rooted out of it.
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Christ at the center
The Passover lamb whose blood turns away death, the exodus through the sea, the manna, the rock, and the tabernacle where God dwells with his people all foreshadow Jesus — our Passover, our redemption, the bread from heaven, and God-with-us in the flesh.
How Exodus 9:15 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.