What Does Exodus 9:15 Mean in the King James?
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.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Hebrew root behind “stretch out” also means send forth or release, and here the hand sent forth carries a blow.
THE MEANING
The hand is extended to smite, with pestilence named as the means by which ruler and people may be cut off from the earth. The threat is collective and bodily, reaching from one person to an entire people. The verse keeps destruction in plain view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that divine power is always shown as protection: here the hand is extended to strike, and a people are threatened with extinction.
THE ROOT
שָׁלַחְתִּי
shalachti
GROWS FROM
שלח
Send out, send forth, release.
The KJV’s “stretch out” carries the root sense of sending forth or releasing. Here that outward movement is a hand sent toward Pharaoh and his people, followed by the threat of pestilence and disappearance.
ALSO GROWS
shilleaḥ: Send away, release.
שִׁלֵּחַ
This branch makes the root’s sense of letting go audible beside the hand sent forth in this verse.
shaliach: Messenger, envoy.
שָׁלִיחַ
A messenger is one sent forth, showing how the same root can describe an extending hand or a person dispatched.
וָאַךְ
va’akh
GROWS FROM
נכה
Strike, hit.
The root behind “smite” also forms a Hebrew noun for a blow or plague. The verse uses a separate word for “pestilence,” but the striking root gives the threat a direct, bodily force.
ALSO GROWS
hikkah: He struck, smote.
הִכָּה
This verb form keeps the root’s action of striking explicit.
makkah: Blow, wound, plague.
מַכָּה
This noun shows that the same root can name both a strike and an affliction.
THE PATTERN
When the LORD’s hand is extended in judgment, divine power takes bodily form as affliction and destruction.
But the hand of the LORD was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he destroyed them, and smote them with emerods, even Ashdod and the coasts thereof.Therefore is the anger of the LORD kindled against his people, and he hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them: and the hills did tremble, and their carcases were torn in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness; and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand.THE THREAD
And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness.“Let my people go” uses שַׁלַּח (shalach), the same root as “stretch out” here, with the sense of sending forth or releasing. The shared root holds a demanded release beside a hand sent forth to strike.
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