Discovery BoxExodus 9:15 
Context9:15 For by now I could have stretched out 1 my hand and struck you and your people with plague, and you would have been destroyed 2 from the earth.
Exodus 11:6
Context11:6 There will be a great cry throughout the whole land of Egypt, such as there has never been, 3 nor ever will be again. 4
Exodus 18:3-4
Context18:3 and her two sons, one of whom was named Gershom (for Moses 5 had said, “I have been a foreigner in a foreign land”), 18:4 and the other Eliezer (for Moses had said, 6 “The God of my father has been my help 7 and delivered 8 me from the sword of Pharaoh”).
1 tn The verb is the Qal perfect שָׁלַחְתִּי (shalakhti), but a past tense, or completed action translation does not fit the context at all. Gesenius lists this reference as an example of the use of the perfect to express actions and facts, whose accomplishment is to be represented not as actual but only as possible. He offers this for Exod 9:15: “I had almost put forth” (GKC 313 §106.p). Also possible is “I should have stretched out my hand.” Others read the potential nuance instead, and render it as “I could have…” as in the present translation.
2 tn The verb כָּחַד (kakhad) means “to hide, efface,” and in the Niphal it has the idea of “be effaced, ruined, destroyed.” Here it will carry the nuance of the result of the preceding verbs: “I could have stretched out my hand…and struck you…and (as a result) you would have been destroyed.”
3 tn Heb “which like it there has never been.”
4 tn Heb “and like it it will not add.”
5 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity (also in the following verse).
6 tn The referent (Moses) and the verb have been specified in the translation for clarity.
7 tn Now is given the etymological explanation of the name of Moses’ other son, Eliezer (אֱלִיעֶזֶר, ’eli’ezer), which means “my God is a help.” The sentiment that explains this name is אֱלֹהֵי אָבִי בְּעֶזְרִי (’elohe ’avi bÿ’ezri, “the God of my father is my help”). The preposition in the sentiment is the bet (ב) essentiae (giving the essence – see GKC 379 §119.i). Not mentioned earlier, the name has become even more appropriate now that God has delivered Moses from Pharaoh again. The word for “help” is a common word in the Bible, first introduced as a description of the woman in the Garden. It means to do for someone what he or she cannot do for himself or herself. Samuel raised the “stone of help” (Ebenezer) when Yahweh helped Israel win the battle (1 Sam 7:12).
8 sn The verb “delivered” is an important motif in this chapter (see its use in vv. 8, 9, and 10 with reference to Pharaoh).
