Commentary
Then he indicated the detail of what is in it of wisdom by his saying, in the state of the doer of "We brought forth": ﴿Eat﴾, meaning what He has planned for you with His wisdom from it. ﴿And graze﴾, meaning let your livestock roam in the pastures. ﴿Your animals﴾, how well He has ordained for them and what is not suitable for you. It was from His perfect planning that He made the sustenance of the servants dependent on their actions, as a means of enjoyment for them. He made their fodder from what exceeds their needs, and they cannot eat it. These descriptions indicate the certainty of His perfection, glorified and exalted is He, that He does not err nor forget. For indeed, He, the Most High, created this world encompassing all that is needed by those in it for what He created them for, from traveling to Him and presenting themselves to Him in all their fluctuations, despite their differences, and the vastness of their attributes, and in their multitude, and the diversity of their temperaments. He did not leave it lacking in anything of that, unlike others. For if He had done something and exerted all effort in completing it, there must appear a deficiency in it, and He would then strive to remove it time after time.
And when He completed this firm proof, indicating the All-Knowing, the Wise, He said, alerting to the spreading of His lights and the majesty of His measure, confirming for the sake of the denial of the deniers: ﴿Indeed, in that﴾, meaning the creation upon these differing aspects, ﴿are signs﴾ for their Creator ﴿for those of understanding﴾, the minds that are meant to guide their owner away from misguidance. And whoever is blind to that, then he has no intellect at all, for his intellect has not benefited him, and what does not benefit is as if it does not exist. Ibn Kathir mentioned here what he attributed to Ibn Ishaq in the biography of Zayd ibn Amr ibn Nufail, and Ibn Hisham to Umayyah ibn Abi al-Salt:
And you are the One who, by Your grace and mercy, sent to Musa a Messenger calling out.
And You said, "O go, and Harun, call to Allah Pharaoh, who was transgressing.
And say to him, 'Did you create this without a stake, so it stood as it is?'
And say to him, 'Did you raise this without pillars? So be gentle, then, with you as a builder.'
And say to him, 'Did you level its center, illuminating when the night envelops it, guiding?'
And say to him, 'Who brings forth the sun in the morning, so that what it touches of the crops becomes bright?'
And say to him, 'Who causes the grain to grow in the earth, so that from it the herbs come forth, swaying?'
And brings forth from it its grain in its heads, and in that are signs for whoever is aware.
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