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wa-ʾidh wāʿadnā mūsā ʾarbaʿīna laylatan thumma ttakhadhtumu l-ʿijla min baʿdihī wa-ʾantum ẓālimūna
And when We made an appointment with Moses for forty nights, you took up the Calf [for worship] in his absence, and you were wrongdoers.
— Ali Quli Qarai
Surah Al-Baqarah, Verses 51-54
And (remember) when We appointed forty nights for Moses, and you then took the Calf (for worship) after him, and you were unjust (to yourselves). (2:51)
Then We pardoned you after that in order that you might be thankful. (2:52)
And (remember) when We gave Moses the Book as a Criterion (between right and wrong) so that you might be guided (aright). (2:53)
And (remember) when Moses said to his people: ‘O’ my people, you have indeed wronged yourselves by worshipping the Calf; so turn (in repentance) to your Creator and slay yourselves (the wrong doers), that will be better for you with your Creator’. Then, He turned towards you (mercifully). Truly, He is the Oft-Pardoning, the Most Merciful. (2:54)
The Israelites’ Greatest Deviation
In these four verses, the Qur’an refers to another episode in the adventurous history of the Children of Israel and reminds the Jews of some shaking events of theirs. These verses speak of their greatest deviation throughout the history of their lives which was their aberration from the path of monotheism to the worshipping of the calf. The Qur’an warns them that they had gone astray once in their history because of the temptations of the mischief makers.
Now they should beware not to repeat that mistake. They should be attentive that the way of pure monotheism, viz. the way of Islam and the Qur’an, is open to them. They must not detach from it. First the verse says:
And (remember) when We appointed forty nights for Moses... (2:51)
When he (Moses) departed from you and his thirty night appointment delayed for forty nights,
…and you then took the Calf (for worship) after him, and you were unjust to yourselves. (2:51)
This event will be scrutinized when commenting on Surah Al-’Araaf,, 7:141 and Surah Ta Ha, 20:86. The story in brief is as follows: After the deliverance of the Children of Israel from the tyrannical grips of Pharaoh and his men, who drowned in the sea, Moses (‘a) was commanded to leave for Mount Sinai to stay there for thirty days and nights in order to receive the Law or the Torah on the Tablets from the Lord.
Subsequently, the term was extended by ten more days and nights for the trial of the people. The delay in the return of Moses (‘a) to his people at the end of thirty days, owing to the extension of the time by ten days and nights, was sufficient to create in the minds of the Israelites doubt about the authenticity of Moses (‘a) as a true Prophet, on one hand, and for fallacious seductive Sameri to make a golden Calf possessing a special sound in order to deceive the Israelites, on the other hand. They, thereby, were deluded into calf-worship.
The majority of the Children of Israel joined him. Aaron (‘a), the deputy and brother of Moses (‘a) with a minority of people remained faithful to their monotheistic creed. They tried very much to restrain others from that great deviation, but they failed finally. When Moses (‘a) returned from the Mount and observed the circumstances, he became angry about it and scorned them severely. They understood that they had done wrong and decided to repent. Moses (‘a) on Allah’s command suggested to them an important repentance, whose explanation will be presented in future verses.
In the next verse it says:
Then We pardoned you after that in order that you might be thankful. (2:52)
Then, it continues mentioning the series of happenings that had occurred before, saying:
And (remember) when We gave Moses the Book as a Criterion (between right and wrong) so that you might be guided (aright). (2:53)
And (remember) when Moses said to his people: ‘O’ my people, you have indeed wronged yourselves by worshipping the Calf... (2:54)
…so turn (in repentance) to your Creator… (2:54)
your repentance should be fulfilled in this definite form:
…and slay yourselves (the wrong doers)… (2:54)
in which the righteous had to kill the wrong doers. Of course, those who had not worshipped the calf were not condemned to death, but they were commissioned to slay those calf-worshippers among themselves, be they their own kith and kin, i.e. their own fellow men whom they loved the most because they had associated a partner, the Calf, to the Lord, the One True God.2
‘...that will be better for you with your Creator.’ Then, He turned toward you (mercifully). Truly, He is the Oft-Pardoning, the Most Merciful. (2:54)
The phrase / innakum alamtum anfusakum / ‘you have indeed wronged yourselves’, here, is also noteworthy because: in Islam, sin which a man or a woman commits, is done against the individual’s own self. For, the first and the immediate effect of a sin committed is that the individual becomes degenerated and thus gets far away from Divine Mercy.
Footnotes