His saying, exalted and glorified is He: "And when the torment fell upon them, they said, 'O Moses, invoke for us your Lord by what He has promised you. If you remove the torment from us, we will surely believe you and we will send with you the Children of Israel.'" "But when We removed the torment from them until a term which they were to reach, then at once they broke their word." "So We took retribution from them and drowned them in the sea because they denied Our signs and were heedless of them."

"The torment": is the punishment, and it is apparent from the verse that what is meant by the torment is the punishment previously mentioned, such as the flood, locusts, and others. Some of the interpreters said: the reference here to the torment is to a plague that was sent down upon them, in which seventy thousand Egyptians died in one night. It has been narrated that Moses, blessings and peace be upon him, commanded the Children of Israel to slaughter a ram and smear their doors with blood so that this would be a distinction between them and the Egyptians in the descent of the punishment.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said: This is weak, and these reports and similar ones are taken from the books of the Children of Israel, which is why they are weak. Their saying: "by what He has promised" means: by Your covenant and Your pledge to Him, and it encompasses all means between Allah, blessed and exalted, and Moses, from the obedience of Moses and a favor from Allah, blessed and exalted. It is possible that this is from them in the form of an oath upon Moses, and it is possible that the meaning is: invoke for us your Lord by what He has promised you. It is also possible - if he felt that there was a covenant between Allah, exalted is He, and Moses regarding them - that the reference is to that, and the first is more general and more binding, while the latter requires a narration.

And their saying: "If you remove (the torment)" means: by your supplication, "we will surely believe". "And we will send" is an oath and its response. This is a covenant from Pharaoh and his chiefs, who have the authority to make decisions, and they have the plural pronoun in their saying: "we will surely believe."

The words of this verse give the distinction between the Egyptians and the Children of Israel in the message of Moses, because if their belief in him were on par with the belief of the Children of Israel, they would not have sent the Children of Israel nor separated from their religion. Rather, they would have participated with the Children of Israel in it. It has been narrated that when the punishment was lifted, Pharaoh said to Moses: 'Go with the Children of Israel wherever you wish,' but some of his sect opposed him, so he returned and broke his word. And Allah, exalted and glorified is He, informed that when We lifted the punishment from them, they broke their covenant which they had given to Moses. And "when" here is for surprise, and "until" is related to "We removed," and the term refers to the limit of each one of them regarding what pertains to him of destruction and death. This is the necessary meaning from the wording, as you say: I took this until a time, and you do not mean a specific time. And Yahya ibn Salam said: the term here refers to drowning.

This saying is because he saw that the majority of this group had agreed that they perished by drowning. He believed that the indication here by the term 'end' is indeed referring to drowning. This is not necessarily true, for it must be that there were some among them who died before the drowning, and they are among those who were delayed and from whom the punishment was lifted until a term they reached, which is included in this verse. So where is the drowning of these? And where is it from those who remained in Egypt and did not drown?

Some people mentioned that the meaning of the words is: 'So when We lifted from them the delayed punishment until a term they reached, they break their word.' The essence of this interpretation is that the punishment was postponed, and the first meaning is clearer because it includes a threat.

Abu al-Barhasam and Abu Haywah read: 'they break' with a kasrah on the kaf. 'Breaking' means to nullify what has been established, and it is used for both bodies and meanings. Ibn Muhaisin, Mujahid, and Ibn Jubair read: 'the punishment' with a dammah on the ra in all of the Qur'an. Abu Hatim said: Except that Ibn Muhaisin broke two letters: 'the punishment of Satan' and 'the punishment, so avoid it.'

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, saw them in another meaning as akin to the punishment and filth from which one must purify oneself. 'The sea' refers to the ocean, and from it is the saying of Dhi al-Rummah:

'A sound and the darkness of night, as if they were ∗∗∗ a sea where the Romans are gathered on its edges.'

The 'ba' in His saying: 'because they' is the ba of causation, and the description of the disbelievers as being heedless - while they had denied and rejected in the beginning of the verses - is from the perspective that they were heedless of what the verses contain of guidance and salvation. They were heedless of that.