Muhammad Asad, The Message of the Qur’ān; Translated and Explained by Muhammad Asad (1980)
(53) And [remember the time] when We vouchsafed unto Moses the divine writ – and [thus] a standard by which to discern the true from the false 38 – so that you might be guided aright; (54) and when Moses said unto his people: “O my people! Verily, you have sinned against yourselves by worshipping the calf; turn, then, in repentance to your Maker and mortify yourselves;39 this will be the best for you in your Maker’s sight.”
And thereupon He accepted your repentance: for, behold, He alone is the Acceptor of Repentance, the Dispenser of Grace.
(55) And [remember] when you said, “O Moses, indeed we shall not believe thee unto we see God face to face!” – whereupon the thunderbolt of punishment 40 overtook you before your very eyes.
(56) But We raised you again after you had been as dead,41 so that you might have cause to be grateful. (57) And We caused the clouds to comfort you with their shade, and sent down unto you manna and quails, [saying,] “Partake of the good things which We have provided for you as sustenance.”
And [by all their sinning] they did no harm unto Us – but [only] against their own selves did they sin. (58) And [remember the time] when We said: “Enter this land,42 and eat of its food as you may desire, abundantly; but enter the gate humbly and say,
38 Muḥammad ʿAbduh amplifies the above interpretation of al-furqān (adopted by Ṭabari, Zamakhsharī and other great commentators) by maintaining that it applies also to “human reason, which enables us to distinguish the true from the false” (Manār III, 160), apparently basing this wider interpretation on 8:41, where the battle of Badr is described as yawm al-furqān (“the day on which the true was distinguished from the false”). While the term furqān is often used in the Qurʾān to describe one or another of the revealed scriptures, and particularly the Qurʾān itself, it has undoubtedly also the connotation pointed out by ʿAbduh: for instance, in 8:29, where it clearly refers to the faculty of moral valuation which distinguishes every human being who is truly conscious of God.
39 Lit., “kill yourselves” or, according to some commentators, “kill one another”. This literal interpretation (probably based on the Biblical account in Exodus xxxii, 26–28) is not, however, convincing in view of the immediately preceding call to repentance and the subsequent statement that this repentance was accepted by God. I incline, therefore, to the interpretation given by ʿAbd al-Jabbār (quoted by Razī in his commentary on this verse) to the effect that the expression “kill yourselves” is used here in a metaphorical sense (majāzan), i.e., “mortify yourselves”.
40 The Qurʾān does not state what form this “thunderbolt of punishment” (aṣ-ṣāʿiqah) took. The lexicographers give various interpretations to this word, but all agree on the element of vehemence and suddenness inherent in it (see Lane IV, 1690).
41 Lit., “after your death”. The expression mawt does not always denote physical death. Arab philologists – e.g., Rāghib – explain the verb mdta (lit., “he died”) as having, in certain contexts, the meaning of “he became deprived of sensation, dead as to the senses”; and occasionally as “deprived of the intellectual faculty, intellectually dead”; and sometimes even as “he slept” (see Lane VII, 2741).
42 The word qaryah primarily denotes a “village” or “town”, but is also used in the sense of “land”. Here it apparently refers to Palestine.
