Exodus 9:15

9:13-21 Moses is here ordered to deliver a dreadful message to Pharaoh. Providence ordered it, that Moses should have a man of such a fierce and stubborn spirit as this Pharaoh to deal with; and every thing made it a most signal instance of the power of God has to humble and bring down the proudest of his enemies. When God's justice threatens ruin, his mercy at the same time shows a way of escape from it. God not only distinguished between Egyptians and Israelites, but between some Egyptians and others. If Pharaoh will not yield, and so prevent the judgment itself, yet those that will take warning, may take shelter. Some believed the things which were spoken, and they feared, and housed their servants and cattle, and it was their wisdom. Even among the servants of Pharaoh, some trembled at God's word; and shall not the sons of Israel dread it? But others believed not, and left their cattle in the field. Obstinate unbelief is deaf to the fairest warnings, and the wisest counsels, which leaves the blood of those that perish upon their own heads.

For now will I stretch out my hand, that I may smite thee and thy people with pestilence,.... Which yet we never find was done; for though this by many is referred to the slaying of the firstborn, yet it is not certain that this was done by the pestilence: besides, Pharaoh was not then smitten, nor his people, only their firstborn; wherefore these words are to be rendered, not in the future, but in the imperfect or preterpluperfect tense, thus; "for when now I stretched out my hand, or if now I had stretched out my hand to smite thee and thy people with pestilence" (a); that is, at the time when he smote the cattle with the murrain or pestilence, when he could as well have smote him and his people with it; there was no want of power in God to do it, and had he done it, it would have been all over with him and them: and thou shall be cut off from the earth; or "thou hadst been, or wouldest have been cut off from the earth" (b) must have perished out of it, and been no more in the land of the living. (a) "modo enim cum extendi", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Drusius, "vel si extendissem", Fagius, Cocceius; so Jarchi, Gersom, Targ. Onk. & Jon. (b) "sic fuisses excisus", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Drusius, Cocceius.

(15) For now I will stretch out my hand. —The words admit of this translation, but the context will not allow it. Translate— And now I might have stretched out mine hand, and smitten both thee and thy people with pestilence; and then thou hadst been cut off from the earth; but, &c.

Pestilence; not properly so called, but largely, as the word is used Hosea 13:14 , meaning with an utter and irrecoverable destruction. This relates partly to the killing of the first-born, which plague did more immediately and nearly concern both him and his people, and principally to their destruction in the Red Sea .

Verse 15. - For now I will stretch out my hand . It is generally agreed by modern writers that this translation fails to give the true sense of the original God does not here announce what he is going to do, but what he might have done, and would have done, but for certain considerations. Translate, "For now might I have stretched out my hand, and smitten thee and thy people with pestilence; and then thou hadst been cut off from the earth." Scripture shows that pestilence is always in God's power, and may at any time be let loose to scourge his foes, and sweep them into the pit of destruction. (See Leviticus 26:25 ; Numbers 11:33 ; Numbers 14:12 ; Numbers 16:46 ; 2 Samuel 24:13-15 , etc.) He had not done now what he might have done, and what Pharaoh's obstinacy might well have provoked him to do; and why? On account of the considerations contained in the next verse. Exodus 9:15

10. Moses took ashes from the furnace—Hebrew, "brick-kiln." The magicians, being sufferers in their own persons, could do nothing, though they had been called; and as the brick-kiln was one of the principal instruments of oppression to the Israelites [De 4:20; 1Ki 8:51; Jer 11:4], it was now converted into a means of chastisement to the Egyptians, who were made to read their sin in their punishment.

As the plagues had thus far entirely failed to bend the unyielding heart of Pharaoh under the will of the Almighty God, the terrors of that judgment, which would infallibly come upon him, were set before him in three more plagues, which were far more terrible than any that had preceded them. That these were to be preparatory to the last decisive blow, is proved by the great solemnity with which they were announced to the hardened king ( Exodus 9:13-16 ). This time Jehovah was about to "send all His strokes at the heart of Pharaoh, and against his servants and his people" ( Exodus 9:14 ). אל־לבּך does not signify "against thy person," for לב is not used for נפשׁ, and even the latter is not a periphrasis for "person;" but the strokes were to go to the king's heart, "It announces that they will be plagues that will not only strike the head and arms, but penetrate the very heart, and inflict a mortal wound" (Calvin). From the plural "strokes," it is evident that this threat referred not only to the seventh plague, viz., the hail, but to all the other plagues, through which Jehovah was about to make known to the king that "there was none like Him in all the earth,;" i.e., that not one of the gods whom the heathen worshipped was like Him, the only true God.

For, in order to show this, Jehovah had not smitten Pharaoh and his people at once with pestilence and cut them off from the earth, but had set him up to make him see, i.e., discern or feel His power, and to glorify His name in all the earth ( Exodus 9:15 , Exodus 9:16 ). In Exodus 9:15 וגו שׁלחתּי (I have stretched out, etc.) is to be taken as the conditional clause: "If I had now stretched out My hand and smitten thee...thou wouldest have been cut off." העמדתּיך forms the antithesis to תּכּהד, and means to cause to stand or continue, as in 1 Kings 15:4 ; 2 Chronicles 9:8 (διετηρήθης lxx). Causing to stand presupposes setting up. In this first sense the Apostle Paul has rendered it ἐξήγειρα in Romans 9:17 , in accordance with the purport of his argument, because "God thereby appeared still more decidedly as absolutely determining all that was done by Pharaoh" (Philippi on Romans 9:17 ). The reason why God had not destroyed Pharaoh at once was twofold: (1) that Pharaoh himself might experience (הראת to cause to see, i.e., to experience) the might of Jehovah, by which he was compelled more than once to give glory to Jehovah ( Exodus 9:27 ; Exodus 10:16-17 ; Exodus 12:31 ); and (2) that the name of Jehovah might be declared throughout all the earth.