diff --git a/base/gmp.jl b/base/gmp.jl
index d4d533ca9a91b..80d6055ca955f 100644
--- a/base/gmp.jl
+++ b/base/gmp.jl
@@ -363,7 +363,7 @@ function isqrt(x::BigInt)
     return z
 end
 
-function ^(x::BigInt, y::UInt)
+function ^(x::BigInt, y::Culong)
     z = BigInt()
     ccall((:__gmpz_pow_ui, :libgmp), Void, (Ptr{BigInt}, Ptr{BigInt}, Culong), &z, &x, y)
     return z
@@ -373,8 +373,20 @@ function bigint_pow(x::BigInt, y::Integer)
     if y<0; throw(DomainError()); end
     if x== 1; return x; end
     if x==-1; return isodd(y) ? x : -x; end
-    if y>typemax(UInt); throw(DomainError()); end
-    return x^uint(y)
+    if y>typemax(Culong)
+       x==0 && return x
+
+       #At this point, x is not 1, 0 or -1 and it is not possible to use
+       #gmpz_pow_ui to compute the answer. Note that the magnitude of the
+       #answer is:
+       #- at least 2^(2^32-1) ≈ 10^(1.3e9) (if Culong === UInt32).
+       #- at least 2^(2^64-1) ≈ 10^(5.5e18) (if Culong === UInt64).
+       #
+       #Assume that the answer will definitely overflow.
+
+       throw(OverflowError())
+    end
+    return x^convert(Culong, y)
 end
 
 ^(x::BigInt , y::BigInt ) = bigint_pow(x, y)
diff --git a/test/numbers.jl b/test/numbers.jl
index 5cdb62675d9ce..0a98165cb8953 100644
--- a/test/numbers.jl
+++ b/test/numbers.jl
@@ -2126,3 +2126,8 @@ end
 #Issue #5570
 @test map(x -> int(mod1(uint(x),uint(5))), 0:15) == [5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
 
+# Issue #9618: errors thrown by large exponentiations
+@test_throws DomainError big(2)^-(big(typemax(UInt))+1)
+@test_throws OverflowError big(2)^(big(typemax(UInt))+1)
+@test 0==big(0)^(big(typemax(UInt))+1)
+