And when the Book mentioned that He terrified them from opposing Him and encouraged them to be in harmony with Him, and that the punishment of the Hereafter was anticipated and absent, and that this matter would affect the rigid ones, He commanded him to remind them with a worldly terror that had already befallen them, so that they would take the covenants of the Book with utmost seriousness, even though only their scholars knew it. Thus, the knowledge of the unlettered one would be one of the signs of his evident Prophethood. He said: ﴿And when﴾ meaning: remind them of this, and if they do not take heed, remind them when ﴿We lifted﴾ meaning: We uprooted and raised, [and] He used the pronoun of greatness for added terror. ﴿The mountain﴾ He made it known to them for their recognition of it, [and He expressed for the indication of its term the difficulty and severity without the Ṭūr - as in Al-Baqarah - because the context is to clarify their distress due to their hastiness in sins that indicate the hardness of the heart].

And when it was encompassing all the direction parallel to their armies, He omitted the preposition and said: ﴿Above them﴾ [Then He clarified that it was greater than them by saying:] ﴿As if it were a shade﴾ meaning: a roof, and He affirmed that it had become parallel to them from the direction above like a roof by saying: ﴿And they thought﴾ it was indeed ﴿inevitable﴾. And since what preceded had affirmed the elevation, there was no need for the particle of elevation, so He said indicating to the speed and closeness: ﴿To them﴾ meaning: if they did not take the covenants of the Torah, they said: And when they saw that, each of them fell prostrating on his left eyebrow, and he began to look with his right eye at the mountain in fear of its falling. And this is a Sunnah for them in their prostration until now, they say: This is the prostration by which the punishment was lifted from us.

And when it was as if it was said: They said: We have taken, O Lord, Your covenants, He indicated to His greatness so that their inclination towards Him would intensify, pointing out that He is the cause of the mountain's elevation: ﴿Take what We have given you﴾ meaning: by Our greatness, for He is worthy of being approached and believed in for perfection. And He confirmed that by saying: ﴿With strength﴾ meaning: with great determination to endure (p-151) its hardships; and when taking something with strength might lead to forgetting it at times, He said: ﴿And remember what is in it﴾ meaning: [of commands and prohibitions and others] so do not forget it ﴿That you may become righteous﴾ meaning: so that your state may be like that of one whose piety is hoped for. Thus, He, glorified and exalted is He, indicated by this to the emphasis of the covenants upon them in taking all that is in the Book, which includes that you should not say about Allah except the truth and not conceal anything of it. They said: And when Musa, peace be upon him, read to them [the tablets and in them was the Book of Allah, there remained on the earth no tree nor mountain nor stone except it trembled, and for that reason, you do not see a Jew hearing the Torah except he trembles and his head falls down.]