John Gill Commentary Exodus 9:15

"For now I had put forth my hand, and smitten thee and thy people with pestilence, and thou hadst been cut off from the earth:" — Exodus 9:15 (ASV)

For now will I stretch out my hand, that I may smite you and your 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 you and your people with pestilence" ^F1 ; 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 you shall be cut off from the earth ; or "you had been, or would have been cut off from the earth" ^F2 must have perished out of it, and been no more in the land of the living.

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FOOTNOTES:

• F1: (ytxlv hte yk) "modo enim cum extendi", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Drusius, "vel si extendissem", Fagius, Cocceius; so Jarchi, Gersom, Targ. Onk. & Jon.
• F2: (dxktw) "sic fuisses excisus", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Drusius, Cocceius.