Exodus 9:15 - Clarke's commentary and critical notes on the Bible

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. For now I will stretch out my hand - In the Hebrew the verbs are in the past tense, and not in the future, as our translation improperly expresses them, by which means a contradiction appears in the text: for neither Pharaoh nor his people were smitten by a pestilence, nor was he by any kind of mortality cut off from the earth. It is true the first-born were slain by a destroying angel, and Pharaoh himself was drowned in the Red Sea; but these judgments do not appear to be referred to in this place. If the words be translated, as they ought, in the subjunctive mood, or in the past instead of the future, this seeming contradiction to facts, as well as all ambiguity, will be avoided: For if now I Had Stretched Out (שלהתי shalachti, had set forth) my hand, and had smitten thee (ואך אותך vaach otheca) and thy people with the pestilence, thou Shouldst Have Been cut off (תכחד ticcached) from the earth.