7546. 'And strike you and your people with pestilence' means so that total devastation would be effected. This is clear from the meaning of 'pestilence' as a laying waste of goodness and truth, dealt with in 7505, in this instance total devastation, since it says that 'Pharaoh and his people' would be struck by it, whereas previously in verse 3 it was only the livestock that would suffer. The pestilence at that point therefore does not mean total devastation but a general laying waste of the more external forms of the Church's truth and good.

7188. 'For with a strong hand he will send them away' means that with all their strength and power they will flee from them. This is clear from the meaning of 'a strong hand' as all the strength and power (for the meaning of 'hand' as power, see 878, 3387, 4931, 5327, 5318, 6947, 7011); and from the meaning of 'sending them away' as fleeing from them. The implications of this are that when punishments deter those belonging to hell from carrying out evil they at length refrain from molestation; they wish to leave those they have been molesting and to flee. Yet because the one and only delight of their life consists in carrying out what is evil and molesting they are unable to refrain unless they summon up all their strength and power to remove themselves. For since that which is the delight of any person's life is at the centre of his love it is at the centre of his life, and he is carried away; it is irresistible unless the unpleasantness of punishment weighs more heavily with him than the delight of carrying out evil. This is the reason for the punishments that the evil suffer in the next life.