al-Jāthiyah

هَذَا كِتَابُنَا يَنْطِقُ عَلَيْكُمْ بِالْحَقِّ إِنَّا كُنَّا نَسْتَنْسِخُ مَا كُنْتُمْ تَعْمَلُونَ

29. This is Our Book that speaks about you with truth. Indeed, We were recording what you used to do.

There shall be nothing concealed on the Day of Resurrection. Everything shall be put forward. The word kitab connotes that everything shall be written down on that Day. Again It is God who addresses them emphatically:

“This is Our Book [viz. Record] that speaks about you with truth”

and reveals your deeds. You could never believe then that your deeds were being recorded somewhere; however, We had commanded [the angels] to record all your deeds. The word nastansikhu and its verbal noun istinsakh are originally derived from n-s-kh denoting “to erase, take away,” e.g. erasing something by something else; for instance, “The sun took away the shade or shadow” (nasakhta al-shams al-dill). The word was later employed to signify “to transcribe” a book from another book without the latter being destroyed.

Some exegets say that

‘the Book’

in the Verse may indicate ‘Divine Book’ revealed to that nation, but

‘the Book’

ad hoc is apparently employed in the sense of ‘record of deeds’ and the majority of exegets accept this view. According to a tradition narrated from ‘Ali (as), the Commander of the Faithful,

“God sends down angels every day to record the deeds of men.”

Following the narration of the mentioned tradition in Tibyan⁶ under the Verse in question, Shaykh Tusi says:

“By Nastansikhu it is meant that God Almighty commands the angels responsible for recording the deeds to take from this group the deeds worthy of recompense and deed them, but delete the rest, since the first group record all the deeds.”

Footnotes

1. 6. vol. 9, p. 260