The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 1) — Page 143
PT. 1 AL-BAQARAH CH. 2 وَإِذْ قُلْتُمْ يُمُوسى لَنْ تُؤْمِنَ لَكَ حَتَّى And remember when you. 56 bij see نَرَى اللهَ جَهْرَةً فَأَخَذَتْكُمُ الصُّعِقَةُ said: 'O Moses, we will by no means believe thee "until we see Allah face to face;' then the thunderbolt overtook you, while you gazed. 62 "4:154. وَانْتُمْ تَنْظُرُونَ that they should work a change or the noise of the trumpet and the reformation in themselves. 62. Important Words: ac (the thunderbolt). See 2:20. Commentary: The present-day Bible, at fault in many places, does not make a direct mention of the incident referred to in the verse under comment. But a careful study of it reveals the fact that the reference is to the time when Moses went up the Mount to receive God's Commandments and left his men camped at the foot of the mountain. On the day appointed, Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet God, and they stood at the nether part of the Mount. And the Lord came down on Mount Sinai on the top of the Mount and ordered Moses saying: "Go down, charge the people, lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze and many of them perish" (Exod. 19:21). The words "to gaze" occurring in the above quotation clearly show that the Israelites were eager to see God and, as the Quran puts it, they had previously expressed a desire to that effect. But when the manifestation actually came and they saw the thunderings and the lightnings, and 143 mountain smoking, they removed themselves and stood afar off and exclaimed to Moses, saying: "Speak thou with us and we will hear: but let not God speak with us lest we die" (Exod. 20:19). This shows that, at first, they wanted to see God, i. e. see a most clear manifestation of Him without which they would not believe, but having been greatly terrified, they afterwards went to the other extreme and shouted to Moses that they would have none of the manifestations and would not even listen to God's words lest they die. As the word J does not necessarily mean "he said" but is used on occasions when one does not say a thing in so many words but simply expresses a wish or idea by one's condition (see under 2:31), it is possible that the Israelites did not make this demand verbally but that their condition was expressive of it. In this case the words would not mean "when you said" but "when your attitude showed that". As the word also means 'death', the verse may be taken to mean that this unreasonable demand of the Israelites SO arrogantly expressed brought about their