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fa-rajaʿa mūsā ʾilā qawmihī ghaḍbāna ʾasifan qāla yā-qawmi ʾa-lam yaʿidkum rabbukum waʿdan ḥasanan ʾa-fa-ṭāla ʿalaykumu l-ʿahdu ʾam ʾaradtum ʾan yaḥilla ʿalaykum ghaḍabun min rabbikum fa-ʾakhlaftum mawʿidī
Thereupon Moses returned to his people, indignant and grieved. He said, ‘O my people! Did your Lord not give you a true promise? Did the period [of my absence] seem too long to you? Or did you desire that your Lord’s wrath should descend on you and so you failed your tryst with me?’
— Ali Quli Qarai
Surah Ta Ha – Verse 86
86. “Then Moses returned to his people angry and sad, saying: ‘O my people! did not your Lord promise you a fair promise (the descent of the Turah)? Did then the time (of my absence) seem so long to you? Or did you desire that Wrath should descend from your Lord on you so that you failed in your tryst with me?’”
By hearing this matter, Moses became so angry that as if his whole entity burnt. Perhaps he was saying to himself that he had worked and tried studiously, confronted any danger and laboured for long years until when that community became acquainted with Monotheism, but alas! and alas again that because of a few days of his absence all his efforts were lost. That was why he immediately returned to those people. The verse says:
When Moses saw the hideous scenery of Calf worship, he shouted at them:
This ‘fair promise’, mentioned in the verse, was either the promise that he had given to the Children of Israel upon the descent of the Turah and the statement of heavenly ordinances in it; or the promise of victory and delivering them from the people of Pharaoh and becoming the inheritor of the earth; or the promise of forgiveness for the repentant, or all of the abovementioned promises. Then, Moses (as) added:
Or, by means of this hideous action, they opposed him in their appointment in order to cause the chastisement of Allah to be descended on them. The verse says:
There are two points here which must be noted. In this verse, two promises have been referred to. One of them is the promise from the side of Allah, i.e., the descent of the Turah; and the other is the promise from the side of Moses (as) to his people that when he was absent they should obey his brother Aaron, but the people, by their Calf worship, ignored both them. When Moses (as) was reprimanding them he questioned them, about their aberration. He questioned whether their aberration was done deliberately and they went toward the Wrath of Allah knowingly, or they did it neglectfully. He also asked them whether they went astray for the reason that his absence prolonged from thirty days to forty days.
In this verse, similar to the content of verse No. 81, the Wrath of Allah has been pointed out, with a difference that: in that verse the cause of the Wrath of Allah has been stated the disobedience of people, while here its reason has been mentioned the people’s breach of promise. These are the factors in which the secret of the defeat of the Children of Israel is hidden.