Exodus 9:15

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.

For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague that would have wiped you off the earth.

"For if by now I had put forth My hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, you would then have been cut off from the earth.

I could have killed you all by now. I could have attacked you with a plague that would have wiped you from the face of the earth.

You know that by now I could have struck you and your people with deadly disease and there would be nothing left of you, not a trace.

For if I had put the full weight of my hand on you and your people, you would have been cut off from the earth:

For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth.

"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.

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.

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.”