And when reaching it was an amazing matter, he presented it in an interesting manner so that the listener would give it its due attention, magnifying its importance. He wanted the listener to long for its explanation, by saying: ﴿Causes of the heavens﴾ meaning: the matters that lead to it. Everything that brings you to something is a cause to it.

And when he mentioned this cause, he mentioned the one caused by it, saying: ﴿And he saw﴾ [As-Saffat: 55] meaning: perhaps he would cause from that and follow it that I am attempting to ascend ﴿to the God of Moses﴾ and it would be as you see, an addition to ﴿I will convey﴾ [Ghafir: 36]. Hafs from Asim has read it in the accusative as a response, indicating that what the wicked has presented in the count of the possible is merely a wish for impossibilities that are not possible in reality.

And when it was among his intentions with that, along with stopping his people for a while from following, to make them think that he would say: I ascended and searched for what Moses said, but I did not find it to be true, he presented to them his saying, clarifying his condition at that time when he thought that their hearts were inclined to believe Moses, peace be upon him: ﴿And indeed, I think of him﴾ meaning: Moses ﴿to be a liar﴾. He left the speech open to the possibility that he meant in the message or in the divinity. And when this was an amazing matter, which is the fact that someone thinks that it is conceivable to the minds that he ascends to the heavens, and that the God who is free from all things and had been when there was nothing with Him would be in the heavens, or in a place among places, for every state in something requires its place, and every needy one is incapable, and the incapable is not suitable for divinity unless it comes from Allah for it to be worthy of being believed. So, the estimation was: Pharaoh acted upon it because we adorned it for him. He added to it his saying as an increase in wonder: ﴿And likewise﴾ meaning: and such is that great adornment that plays with the minds. And when the harmful is the adornment, not the adorned specifically, he built it for the passive form, saying: ﴿It was adorned﴾ meaning: the adorner adorned the matter, and it is truly for Allah, the Exalted, by His creation and His obligation, for everything that entered into existence from the newly created is His creation. And the devil is metaphorically by causing the whispering which is the creation of Allah, the Exalted, ﴿For Pharaoh, evil was his deed﴾ in all his matters, so he turned to it desiring it along with some of them being distant from intellect, less than those of intellect, let alone those of high aspirations among them, let alone kings. And he obeyed him in it and his people ﴿and was turned away﴾ by himself and prevented others - according to the reading with the opening - and Allah prevented him - according to the reading of the Kufans and Ya'qub with the damm ﴿from the path﴾ meaning: the one that there is no path in truth other than it, which leads to Allah, the Exalted.

And when this context is such that one might think that Pharaoh has a type of control, he negates that by saying: "And what is the plot." He repeated the name and did not imply it so that it would not be specific to a certain aspect. He said: "Pharaoh," meaning: in the nullification of the matter of Moses, blessings and peace be upon him, "except in ruin," meaning: in great loss and destruction surrounding him, from which he cannot escape. And he is given nothing except because he is burdened by it and subdued in it, as the situation has revealed. This certainly indicates that if he had the slightest control that he could rely on, his actions would not have resulted in loss.