The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 1) — Page 137
PT. 1 AL-BAQARAH CH. 2 Kijang KKÍ ثُمَّ عَفَوْنَا عَنْكُمْ مِّنْ بَعْدِ ذَلِكَ لَعَلَّكُمْ We forgave you 53. Then "We forgave thereafter, that you might be grateful. 59 تَشْكُرُونَ "4:154. Egypt with Moses, and came across any idol-worshipping people on the way, they requested Moses again and again to sanction a similar worship for them (7:139). So eager were they for such worship that when Moses went to Mount Sinai, they made a calf and took to worshipping it. They revered the calf, because in Egypt the cow was held in special veneration. Egypt, like India, was an agricultural country where cattle must be of the highest value to man. Hence cow- worship. as The Bible mentions Aaron having made a calf for the Israelites (Exod. 32:1-6). But the Quran strongly refutes this idea. Aaron was a Prophet of God and could not stoop to idol-worship. Says the Quran, And Aaron had said to them before this, 'O my people, you have only been tried by means of the calf; and surely, the Gracious God is your Lord; so follow me and do as I bid you' (20:91). It is strange that such baseless and incredible stories as the participation of a chosen one of God in idol- worship should find place in a Book which claims to be inspired. It only proves that the Bible has been the object of human interference. It is probable that some interested people deliberately interpolated the sacred writings and ascribed certain vices to the Prophets; and the Christian divines eagerly took them for granted, as they were of good use to 137 them as a means of the exaltation of Jesus over the rest of the Prophets. The verse speaks of the appointed duration as being of forty nights. In 7: 143 the Quran further tells us that at first the appointed duration was thirty nights, but by a subsequent addition of ten the period was extended to forty nights which is a fuller number. This favour was granted to Moses because of his faithfulness and sincerity. The words, and you were transgressors, mean, you resorted to setting up equals with God, because this practice is indeed the greatest alb i. e. putting a thing in a wrong place. Elsewhere the Quran says: 5✰i. e. attributing partners to God is indeed a great (31:14). 59. Commentary: We learn from Exod. 32:9, 10 that the worship of the calf called forth the wrath of God, whereupon Moses prayed to God for the Israelites and then, in the words of the Old Testament, 'the Lord repented of the evil which He thought to do unto His people' (Exod. 32:14). In this connection it may be noted that the. Quran uses the word 'forgave' instead of 'repented', as used in the Bible, for the latter expression is obviously quite inappropriate to God's attribute of Knowledge and Majesty. Most probably the word is either a mistranslation of the original or a later interpolation.