2. Al-Baqara

And when you said, ‘Moses, we will not endure one sort of food, that is to say, manna and quails; pray to your Lord for us, that He may bring forth for us, something, of (min here is explicative) what the earth produces — green herbs, cucumbers, garlic, lentils, onions’, he, Moses, said, to them, ‘Would you exchange what is better, more noble, that is, do you substitute this, with what is lowlier?’ (the hamza of a-tastabdilūna is for rebuke); they thus refused to change their mind and he [Moses] supplicated to God, and He, exalted be He, said, ‘Go down to a city, whichever city it may be; you shall have, there, what you demanded’ of vegetable produce; And abasement, submissiveness, and wretchedness, that is, the signs of poverty on account of their submissiveness and debasement that always accompany them, even if they be rich, in the same way that a coin never changes its mint; were cast upon them, and they incurred, ended up with God’s wrath; that, that is, that affliction and wrath, was because they used to disbelieve the signs of God and slay prophets, such as Zachariah and John, without right, that is, unjustly; that was because they disobeyed, and they were transgressors, overstepping the bounds in disobedience (here the repetition [dhālik bi-mā ‘asaw wa-kānū ya‘tadūn] is for emphasis).

Surely those who believe, [who believed] before, in the prophets, and those of Jewry, the Jews, and the Christians, and the Sabaeans, a Christian or Jewish sect, whoever, from among them, believes in God and the Last Day, in the time of our Prophet, and performs righteous deeds, according to the Law given to him — their wage, that is, the reward for their deeds, is with their Lord, and no fear shall befall them, neither shall they grieve (the [singular] person of the verbs āmana, ‘believes’, and ‘amila, ‘performs’, takes account of the [singular] form of man, ‘whoever’, but in what comes afterwards [of the plural pronouns] its [plural] meaning [is taken into account]).

And, mention, when We made a covenant with you, your pledge to act according to what is in the Torah, and We, had, raised above you the Mount, which We uprooted from the earth [and placed] above you when you refused to accept it [sc. the Torah], and We said, ‘Take forcefully, seriously and with effort, what We have given you, and remember what is in it, acting in accordance with it, so that you might preserve yourselves’, from the Fire or acts of disobedience.

Then you turned away thereafter, and but for God’s bounty and His mercy towards you, you would have been among the losers [there is no commentary on this verse].

And verily (wa-la-qad: the lām is for oaths) you know that there were those among you who transgressed, violated, the Sabbath, by fishing, when We had forbidden you to do so — these were the inhabitants of Eilat — and We said to them, ‘Be apes, despised!’, rejected, and they became so: they died three days later.

And We made it, this punishment, an exemplary punishment, a lesson to dissuade others from doing what they did; for all the former times and for the latter, that is, for the people of that time or those that came later; and an admonition to such as who fear, God: these are singled out for mention here because they, in contrast to others, are the ones who benefit thereby.

And, mention, when Moses said to his people, when one among them was killed and the killer was not known, and so they asked Moses to pray to God to reveal the killer, which he did; ‘God commands you to sacrifice a cow’. They said, ‘Do you take us in mockery?’, that is, making fun of us when you answer us like this? He said, ‘I take refuge with, I seek defence with, God lest I should be one of the ignorant’, one of those who indulge in mockery.

But when they realised that he was being serious, They said, ‘Pray to your Lord for us, that He may make clear to us what she may be’, its true nature, He, Moses, said, ‘He, God, says she is a cow neither old, nor virgin, that is, young, middling between the two, in terms of age; so do what you have been commanded’, by way of sacrificing it.

They said, ‘Pray to your Lord for us, that He make clear to us what she may be: does it graze freely or is it used in labour?; the cows (that is, the species described in the way mentioned), are all alike to us, because there are many of them and we have not been able to find the one sought after; and if God wills, we shall then be guided’ to it. In one hadīth [it is reported]: ‘Had they not uttered the proviso [inshā’a Llāh], it would never have been made clear to them’.